


Summertime

by boxoftheskyking



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bat!Stiles, Body Horror, Boyd rules the world, Creepy shit, Death of child, Derek Has Issues, Gen, Ghosts, Hurt!Stiles, Scott is a wonderful beast, Stiles is an actual monster thing, Surgery, Violence, and non-linear narratives, fables and fairy tales, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:57:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 31,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxoftheskyking/pseuds/boxoftheskyking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Complete.</p><p>“I don’t make speeches. I just let my bat speak for me in the summertime.” ~Honus Wagner</p><p>This is a strange deviation from an idea from the glorious Niña. </p><p>The idea:  “‘an AU where Stiles IS a shape-shifter. Only he doesn’t change into another creature, just into a mute, hyper-violent, bat-wielding Hyde character. And it only happens during the summer months. Like he said in that one episode, “It’s seasonal.”’</p><p>These chapters are a sort of connected string of scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And Then You Run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neenya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neenya/gifts).



> This turned into vaguely violent prose poetry about baseball, but, you know, that's cool, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art by nininghasfeelings

                                                 [](http://nininghasfeelings.tumblr.com/post/31701429289)

_Last year, I was sort of a kid and I was a little scared, I ain't scared any more." ~ Hank Aaron_

\----

The crack of the bat is the first sound of summer.

His dad always says it, every year. And if you wait, he says, if you wait to hear it, then summer waits, too. Summer waits until you hear it, his dad always says. Summer doesn’t mind waiting. That’s what summer’s about. Slow and lazy and patient. 

And then you hear it. 

 

He was never any good at fielding; no surprises there. Runs okay, catches okay, too, but putting them together is a recipe for disaster. Complete, head-over-heels disaster. 

When he’s at the plate, though, and he breathes out slow and steady like an archer and his hips shift just so, just so, and his shoulder gives a little twitch, like a little “hello” twitch to the ball, like a “hello there, come on over here, come on straight in over here” twitch to the ball, then he’s somebody else. “You hear the crack of the bat and you become something else,” his dad always says. You become a summer kid, and a summer kid knows how to do two things: hit and run. He always laughed when his dad said that, “hit and run” like it’s a good thing. Coming from a Sheriff, it’s too funny.  ”You make contact,” his dad says, shrugging off the joke, “hard. Then you run.”

He’s been running hard, but he’s standing still now, panting. His bat’s split up the middle, edges cutting into his fingers and the palm of his hand, but he doesn’t let it go. 

It’s not baseballs coming at him, now. Hasn’t been for years. Not since She—it was always Her watching and Her voice shouting out his name and Her hand on his father’s back and now there’s no more Her so there’s no more baseball. Now it’s skin and bones and teeth grown too long. Monsters coming out of closets to play, but they never play by the rules, they never play fair. They go for the throat. You never go for the throat, not in a game, and so he listens for the echo of the crack and he turns.

He’s got friends who turn, too, but they turn different. It’s not a sound, for them, it’s a certain quality of light. He thinks that’s a tactful way to put it. His best friend says that the world looks different in the seconds before it happens, like things getting doused in midday moonlight. “It’s not blind rage,” he insists. “I can see. I mean, I can definitely see.” And his best friend has never been the sharpest tooth in the bloody mouth they call home, so he lets it go. 

For him, it’s a crack. The first time his best friend sees him turn, he falls to his knees and throws up in the grass. He doesn’t think it’s fair; he hasn’t had time to clean his bat off, yet. His best friend has done worse, has scared him worse that this. He thinks.

The silence is the best part. His best friend swears he was screaming the whole time. Words that sounded like No and Stop and God God God—not calling anybody by name, just shouting the word like an empty sound. He never heard a thing.

It’s never silent in the fall or the winter, even the early spring. His head is ringing every hour of every day with Maybe and What If and Dear God Why Did I and always, unceasingly Her. Her, Her, Her, Her voice shouting his name, like that time he got lost in the supermarket and the vowel stretches out and out into a wail and makes his head throb and his skull hum with the force of it. 

When he turns, it’s silence.

His best friend is looking up at him with wet eyes and all he can think to say is “No one will hurt you, not ever again.” Which is funny, because his best friend has his own ways of not getting hurt. But he means it. And his best friend stops looking like he’s about to cry and gets to his feet and rubs his mouth with the sleeve of his sweatshirt and says “They’re going to hunt you down.” And he smiles and brushes the dirt off of his best friend’s face and he says, “That’s the second part. First, you make contact. Then, you run.”


	2. Bad Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Man Who Will Be His Undoing

_"I never smile when I have a bat in my hands." ~Hank Aaron_

\-----

He doesn’t know what day it is, when The Man Who Will Be His Undoing finds him knee-deep in a muddy creek. He never knows the days, during the summer. No school, no need. It’s a Saturday, for the record. 

The Man doesn’t try to mask his approach, tramping down brush and snapping twigs as he goes. The Boy with the Bat doesn’t look up.

“What are you doing?” The Man asks, and it’s always variations of the same thing. What are you doing, where have you been, what do you know, why the hell would you— The Boy doesn’t respond.

“Stiles.”

The Boy continues to scrub at his arms, irritated with the stubborn stains. He sighs and pulls his shirt over his head, bending to soak it in creek water before using it to attack the streaks of red that cover arms, neck, chest. 

“Isaac told me what you did. What you are.” The Man Who Will Be His Undoing paces on the bank, scuffed leather boots sinking into the mud. It’s late summer and they haven’t had rain in a good two weeks. The creek water doesn’t so much clean blood off his arms as it covers him in rivulets of reddening mud.

“You going to put me down?” The Boy asks, cocking his head to the side in curiosity, but not meeting The Man’s eyes. “Like a dog? Bad dog.”

“You’re not a dog.”

“Nope. You going to put me down anyway?”

The Man sighs and rubs at his eyes. He hasn’t been sleeping well, not for years. The Boy knows, though he never says anything. 

“Did you ask for it?” The Man asks, and his voice tries to come out hard. It doesn’t. It trails off somewhere North of stern and cracks into someplace close to desperate. “Or did something do it to you?”

“I don’t know.” The Boy looks at him now, lets his shirt sag in the stagnant water. Earlier, a few months, only, he’d never dare look The Man in they eye with anything less than three layers on. But he’s different now. “Just happened one day. I didn’t ask for it, but I didn’t fight it, either.”

The Man Who Will Be His Undoing stops his pacing and stares, like The Boy is a page of badly translated text that makes sense if you spend the time piecing it together. He looks for a minute too long, and The Boy moves, breaking his concentration.

“What are you going to do, Derek?” he asks, and it’s not a real challenge, it just looks like one.

“I don’t know. I have to do something. You know that. You know I can’t just— I have to do something.” 

The Boy nods and wrings out his shirt before pulling it over his head. He scrambles up the bank and brushes past The Man, grabbing his bat off the ground.

“You’re up,” he says, looking The Man straight in the eye. “Whatever you do, I’m not going to stop you. Whatever you have to do, I’ll let you.”

He trudges off through the trees, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the bat against his shoulder. He lets the thing take over just enough to block the voice calling out behind him. He doesn’t turn around. Behind him, The Man Who Will Be His Undoing sinks to the ground, undone.


	3. The Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the silence that gets him, in the end.

_If I had my career to play over, one thing I'd do differently is swing more. ~Pee Wee Reese_

They come from behind him. It’s the silence, the blessed silence, that gets him in the end. But that’s later, that’s the end.

It starts with The Boy Who Would Be A Mountain, screaming.

He—The Boy with the Bat—is himself, has been for almost a whole week now, sitting in a tree with a comic book over his knees. Another has fallen halfway down, snagged on a slender branch, hung over like brightly colored cloth. He pretends to read, his head tipped back against the trunk, tracing the patterns of warmth that dance across his skin as the leaf-shadows shift around him. The bat is leaning against the trunk of the tree below him.

He’s toying with the idea of dozing off when he hears the scream. It’s not a scream of fear or anger, but the kind of sound you don’t know you’re making until after, when you try to swallow and your throat feels bloody. He doesn’t recognize the voice, but something icy sinks into his spine and he leaps down from his branch, brightly inked pages fluttering to the ground behind him.

The crack starts to catch him as he hits the dirt, rolling down onto one shoulder. He grits his teeth to hold it off long enough to hear another cry, a deep resounding bellow, this time, before grabbing the bat and letting himself turn. He knows the voice.

The Boy Who Would Be a Mountain has the straightest back he’s ever seen. Every inch of him, from the soles of his feet to the crown of his smooth-shorn head, seems to stretch Up and Out. He is steady as rock and powerful as an avalanche. And he is screaming.

He doesn’t recognize the Woman With the Knives, but his summer nose can smell the wolfsbane at thirty paces. She looks up at him with a smile that would be dripping. If she had fangs, they would be dripping red, foaming. She twists the knives once, twice, and pulls them out, leaving The Boy Who Would Be a Mountain to roll away, dragging his mangled limbs behind him. His mouth is moving, sulfur eyes trained on The Boy With the Bat, but the silence holds. 

The Boy can see it clearly, in the shine of The Woman’s smile. Even as he shatters it across his bat, the pieces fall into place. It’s a trap. He knows it the second before a blade catches him low in the back. The person—people?—behind him follows the twist of the swing, coming at his left side on the follow through. He doesn’t cry out; he can’t cry out, not now that he’s turned. It’s long, the blade, serrated, and sinks in deep.

Of course it’s the silence that gets him, in the end. But it isn’t the end, not really. He breathes in sharp, still alive. The Boy Who Would Be a Mountain surges up on bloody feet, launching himself forward on the strength of his will alone.

If The Boy with the Bat were himself, now, he would throw himself on The Mountain’s shoulders and shout. “Boyd! Boyd, get out of here! Go home! This isn’t about you anymore!”

But he is silenced, his head is full of nothing but pain and blood-smell and shining, dripping teeth. He hits the ground and rolls, gripping the bat like a lifeline. The Mountain has a clawful of somebody’s stomach, but it isn’t enough, he’s missing an ear and he’s back on his knees. The Boy feels the crack again, deeper this time, like his ribs are the bat and his heart is the ball.

He’s never felt it twice. His bones shake. His vision tunnels and he’s on his feet, bat pulling him up like a magnet pointing skyward. 

“See the ball,” his dad says, breaking the silence inside his head. “Breathe, focus, it’s just you and the ball.”

The ball grins at him with his brother’s blood on its hands and its face and he swings, smooth and easy from the shoulder. Nothing else in the world. No struggle for breath, no blood pooling in the waistband of his jeans, no crumbling Mountain with horrified eyes. Just him and the ball. Easy, summertime swing.

He blacks out before it’s finished, comes to cradled in someone’s arms. Someone running, and his first thought is that he must be back to himself. The panting breath is too loud in his numb ears, the sounds of rocks and brush underfoot make his teeth ache as they rush through him. 

And then the pain. He likes to think, later, that he didn’t wail like a child, but he knows he did. The Man stops running at the sound, falls to his knees at the side of the road, and pulls back to look at his face.

“Boyd—” he gasps. His lungs aren’t working, he feels bubbles, he feels like pneumonia, if pneumonia was set on fire.

“He’s fine,” The Man murmurs, shifting his arms. “He’s fine, he’ll be fine, he’ll be okay. I’m taking you to Deaton. You’ll be fine. You’ll be okay.”

If he didn’t hurt so much, he might make fun of the wetness on The Man’s cheeks. No. No, he never would, not really. He screams again when The Man rises, holding him tighter and whispering raw apologies with every exhale. He can’t stand the sound, the “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Stiles, God, I’m sorry.” He squeezes his eyes shut and begs for the crack, tries to force himself to turn, to find the silence again. Eventually it comes, wrapped in the fog of unconsciousness, accompanied by the panicked beating of another heart.


	4. The Off-Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fall turns into winter.

_"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." ~Rogers Hornsby_

_\----_

If it hadn't been for The Earthquake Girl, his best friend would be dead. The Boy with the Bat kneels in the middle of the parking lot, hands empty and scraped, breath coming in little gasps. They cloud around his face, hanging in the cold air. The Earthquake Girl has his best friend draped over her shoulder, like he weighs nothing, and his mouth is hanging open, dripping spit and a little blood.

"What the hell, Stiles?" she hisses at him. He gapes, mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish.

"Can't," he gasps out, squinting his eyes against the vicious humming of his brain. "Off-season."

She scoffs at him and turns on her heel, taking off at a quick lope with his best friend bouncing against her back. He can't move, staring at his traitorous hands. There will be bruises on his cheek tomorrow, a cut on the side of his neck. He's almost certainly concussed, but he can barely feel anything. He watches the Girl go with a little spark of affection tempering his panic. The Earthquake Girl, who started as a shiver and a shake, who grew and grew until she could level Mountains.

By the time he gets to the vet's, his best friend is already bandaged and resting on an operating table. The Doc is waiting for him at the door.

"Where the hell have you been?" 

He blinks, opens his mouth, shuts it. Shrugs. Breathes light and quick, looking down at the ground. He doesn't like looking at this man's face, not anymore. This is a particular brand of disappointment, distrust, that he can't stand.

"I expected-- Well, I suppose I should learn not to expect anything from you." The Doc turns away, back into the office. The Boy flinches, hunches his shoulders.

His best friend his shirtless, chest half covered in clean white bandages. The Boy can't breathe properly until he's pulled a chair up next to the table and pressed his cheek into the bare skin of his best friend's shoulder.

"Hey." It comes out crackly, like his best friend is just waking up. He sounds soft and sleepy, like it's any old Saturday morning and they've fallen asleep on the couch covered in potato chip crumbs and spilled sodapop. The Boy squeezes his eyes shut, bites his lips. It doesn't help; he cries anyway.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't. I don't know why, I just-- It wouldn't come."

"I know." His best friend brings a hand up and brushes the top of his head. The Boy, shifts, turning his head so he is resting on his best friend's chest, looking up at his face. He can mostly just see the bottom of his jaw and the curve of his cheek, but he doesn't mind. His best friend's fingers skim over his hair, drawing absentminded patterns.

"It only works in the summer, I guess." He sniffs and wipes his nose on his sleeve. "Fucking-- Fucking useless. Back to being useless, I guess. If Erica hadn't been--"

His best friend digs a warning claw into the back of his head.

"Stop. She was there, it's fine. I'm fine. You'd have figured something out, if you had to. You always do."

He scrunches his face up again, takes a shaky breath.

"You figure it all out. That's what you do. The other stuff? That's all extra.'

He turns his face into warm skin, wiping at his eyes without pulling away.

"I'm glad it's only a summer thing." His best friend says softly.

"Why?" he chokes out.

His best friend adjusts his pillow, propping himself up higher. He looks at The Boy, who forces himself not to turn away, not to hide his splotchy face or his wet eyes.

His best friend shrugs. "'Cause it means you're still you. I-- I haven't lost you. I haven't lost you yet. I guess."

He throws an arm across his best friend's middle and hangs on. "We'll figure it out. I won't be so bad, next year. I'll figure out how to control it, and then I'll be-- I'll be next to you, I'll have your back, I promise."

"I know you will. Womb to tomb."

"Birth to earth." He can't help but smile.

"I still have no idea what that means," his best friend says, and he goes back to rubbing soft fingers into The Boy's soft hair, humming lightly. The Boy squeezes tighter and grins wider against his chest. His hand brushes the edge of a bandage, and his grin fades.

"This is backwards," The Boy murmurs, finally. It doesn't matter how quietly he speaks, he knows his friend will hear.

"Hmm?"

"You shouldn't be comforting me. Should be the other way around." He doesn't pull away. He thinks he can feel his best friend smile, even with his eyes closed.

"You are comforting me. This is nice. You're fuzzy."

He snorts. It's wetter than he expected, given the crying, so he wipes off his best friend's chest with a sleeve and mumbles an apology.

"You're fuzzy and disgusting. It's okay. I love you anyway." He pushes The Boy's head back into position and settles himself against the pillow. His eyes slip closed and the pain in his chest and abdomen starts to fade. 

"You're too good for me, man," he hears The Boy say as he drifts off.

"Shut up," he mumbles, and falls asleep.

When he wakes up, he knows The Boy will be there, complaining about the smell and the hour and the crick in his neck. Just like always.


	5. Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He should be a lot of things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art by nininghasfeelings

_[](http://nininghasfeelings.tumblr.com/post/33049933051)_

_“Every time I hear of this guy again, I wonder how he was possible.” ~Joe DiMaggio, about Ty Cobb_

\-------

It's early March, a few weeks before The Season starts. He can feel it coming, a low and soft singing in his blood. Not quite a vibration, not yet, but a kind of quiet anticipation.

Things go wrong, as they always do. The hunter gets to the house before them and catches The Man Who Will Be His Undoing with a knife to the chest, digging it in right under his collarbone. The knife is slightly curved, like a little trough, and carries a sticky purple venom that runs below The Man's skin like mercury. The Boy with the Bat screams and takes the hunter down with a fire poker. He imagines there was once a fireplace in the old wreck of a building, and for once he's glad that The Man is irrationally averse to cleaning up his piles of broken artifacts. 

"Oh God oh God oh God," he feels his muscles aching for the crack, but he can't turn. It isn't time yet. The Man's pained gasps are ringing in his ears as he slumps back against the wall, blood and venom mingling between his fingers. Something black is leaking out of the corner of his lips, and The Boy sinks to his knees to wipe it away.

"I can do this. Derek. Derek, just stay awake, okay? I can fix this. I can do it."

The Man is shaking is head, more rolling it along the wall than shaking, like his neck can't hold the weight of his skull.

"You have to-- Ah, damn it-- Get out of here, get back to-- Take care of . . . you have to . . ." he starts to drift, head lolling to the side. 

"No, don't do that. Don't even think about-- Okay. Okay, there's something I can do. Just like snake venom, right? Isn't that-- That works." He tears open the remains of The Man's shirt, leans forward. "If you catch it right away--"

The Man tries to shove him away, consciousness fighting it's way back, but his arms feel like rubber. "No. Stiles, you idiot, don't-- It's poisonous to humans, too."

"I'm not a human."

"It's probably--"

"We don't know what I am. Worth a shot." He shrugs, like he's just suggested skipping school or eating the last slice of pizza, a "who cares" kind of shrug. Like he isn't delivering the blandest suicide note in the history of the world.

"Stiles. Stiles, look at me. Don't do this."

The Boy traces his thumbs over the wound, pressing at the skin around it. 

"Please. Please, don't. It's not worth it. I'm not--"

"Don't give me that fucking--"

"Nothing would be worth it. Do you hear me? Nothing would ever be worth it."

"You have to believe it's going to work, and it'll work. Maybe." He shrugs again, leans in and seals his mouth over it, sucking hard. The Man convulses, head slamming back against the wall as his chest jerks forward. The Boy holds on, drinks in venom and blood and squeezes his eyes shut. The Man blacks out, just for a moment, as every one of his cells freezes and thaws, his body erases and rewrites itself. When he comes to, The Boy is sunk back on his heels, chin dropped to his chest.

"Stiles!" The Man tries to scramble towards him, but his bones ache and his joints won't straighten right. The Boy shakes his head.

He manages to shift onto his knees and takes The Boy's face in his hands, tilts it up. His eyes are closed and his jaw clenched. His throat is working grotesquely, gagging and swallowing, air huffing out of his nose. 

"Oh God. No, no, no, why did you do that?  _Why would you do that?"_  The Man shakes him by the shoulders and regrets it, because The Boy gives a little whimper and a thin stream of black slips out from between his lips. The Man is shaking from the inside out, trying not to breathe, his heart calcifying in his chest. His hands fall to The Boy's elbows, heavy as lead.

"I don't know what to do. Stiles. I don't. I'll get you to a hospital. I'll get you somewhere--"

What's left of his voice dies as The Boy raises his head. Something is wetting his lashes, but it isn't tears. It's thick and black, like watered-down tar, and it's escaping his closed eyelids and dripping down his cheeks. He reaches out to touch it, and it's warm like tears, even smells salty, but it's thick and dark and poisonous.  The Boy jerks back, eyes still shut. He's jerking oddly, shoulders and neck twitching, breath uneven and thick. The Man reaches out again and The Boy surges up to his feet, takes off stumbling. There's black falling from his mouth, his eyes, and he's moving like he doesn't have a choice.

"I--, I--" is all he can force out, choking as something inside him audibly snaps. His bones are breaking, his muscles twisting, and he is pulled, somehow, away.

The Man screams after him as he stumbles out the door, promising things he has no idea how to deliver, scratching claws across the floor in failed attempts to pull himself forward.

He tries to get his legs underneath him, but they refuse to move. His body betrays him. The venom is gone, the pain is gone, but he's just left empty and hollow and shaking. He's used to his body defying him, defying physics and logic and will, but never a betrayal like this.

He screams for The Boy, but his voice betrays him, too. He crumples around his own knees and cries. It feels like Her, Her, Her all over again, but it's different. This isn't his sister, his Alpha, His First And Only. This is The Boy, this is His Boy, and he can't move his legs. 

"You have to believe it's going to work, and it'll work. Maybe," The Boy says in his mind, so he closes his eyes and cries and wills something to work. He wants to feel the thread of connection like he does with the pack, but The Boy has always been something else, an Other thing that doesn't behave like he should.

He's probably asking someone for help. Someone else's god, maybe, crying and gasping and feeling nonsense words trip over his tongue. A part of his brain--the separate part that let him bury His First and Only, the part that does not does not _does not_ miss his uncle and the way he smiled Before--calmly notes that he has not broken in a very long time. It stands back, surprised and maybe a bit impressed at the way he digs into his own arms with bloody claws, the curses that fall from his lips, the repetition of The Boy's name.

It's also the part of him that notices a shift in smell and the sound of running footsteps.

"Derek! Derek-- Oh my God." The Doc drops to his knees, and the separate part of The Man's brain imagines the picture he sees. Blood and black spattering the floor, The Man himself crumpled and unable to move, babbling and sobbing like a lunatic. Like some other creature has taken over his body, burning him out from the core.

"What did they use? Tell me what poison it was, Derek." The Doc is holding both of wrists together, straightening his fingers and letting his scratches heal.

"Stiles, Stiles, Stiles," is all The Man can say, trying to push himself upright, to get to the door. The Boy is the poison, The Boy burns under his skin and cleans him out, The Boy will be the death of him. He has killed The Boy. The Doc can help. Why isn't The Doc helping? His eyes are wide and frightened, not like him at all. His heartbeat is too fast, his hands are too tight. He presses a hand to the side of The Man's face, and that doesn't make sense either. He isn't injured there, nor along the back of his neck where The Doc holds, gently.

"Okay. It's okay, Derek. Don't get up; you're still not healed. Let me see." He pushes The Man back against the wall and prods at the wound. The Man looks down at it for the first time to see that it hasn't healed. It isn't bleeding; it's just there, a gash in his skin with a clear view to the muscle underneath. He imagines his blood arrested by the healing process, parted like the old Red Sea, but forever, sealed in like walls of red glass.

"What happened?" The Doc asks again, and The Man just asks for The Boy, again and again. He tries to explain, hands taking place of words when his voice fails him. The Doc wipes his eyes for him, murmuring something low and true that loosens the invisible vise around his chest.

"We'll find him, okay? He'll be all right. I've never seen this, not in all my years. Don't give up yet. Don't worry."

"He drank poison, Doc," The Man chokes out. "He took it all on and let it . . . eat him, dissolve him. I don't know what-- I've never seen-- Is he dead? He should be dead."

"He should be dead," The Doc agrees, but with a smile. "He should be a lot of things."

"He is a lot of things."

"Yes, that's true. But rarely what he should be. Right?"

"I guess so."

"It would be just like Stilinski to spit in the face of Reason. Hold Mortality hostage and argue Death itself to-- Well, you know."

The Man manages an impossible smile. The Doc relaxes, holds his shoulder, the side of his head.

"Scott and Isaac are looking for him now. He can't have gone far. We'll figure out what to do. We'll save him if we have to. You need to rest."

"I need to--"

"Rest. Son. You need to rest. Can you move at all?"

He tries, but his arms will barely push the rest of him off the wall. 

"No. Sorry."

The Doc leaves him, and the world starts to get fuzzy around the edges. He comes alert for a second as a pillow is tucked behind him and an old wool blanket is arranged over his legs. A soft pressure on top of his head opens his eyes, and he sees The Doc's chin retreating over his eyeline.

"Give it time; you'll be all right."

"Thanks," he rasps as he starts to drift again.

"You don't have to  _thank_ me. Jesus." The Doc sounds angry, almost. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand and blinks hard before heading out into the night, listening for the sound of wolves.


	6. The Miss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you might be like "Whoa, this is a stylistic change. And a POV change. I don't like it."  
> To you I say  
> "I know. It's all an experiment, guys. I'm just playing here."
> 
> Idea from the great petrichorlore

_“I’ve always swung the same way. The difference is when I swing and miss, people say, ‘He’s swinging for the fences.’ But when I swing and make contact people say, ‘That’s a nice swing.’ But there’s no difference, it’s the same swing.” ~Sammy Sosa_

——-

“I’m gonna be honest, Anna,” he says, staring out the window with his hands on his hips. “I don’t know if I want to do this anymore. One of these days, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna take off. Just … go.”

She says nothing. Of course.

“Sheriff? You ready?” Kaya grabs her jacket from the back of one of his chairs. He hasn’t figured out how his office became the station dumping ground—Kaya makes comments about “nesting” whenever he asks, so he’s stopped making it a thing. For whatever reason, he can’t go four feet without bumping into her jacket, Carl’s spare pair of boots, Linda’s travel mug, on one occasion her dog …

“Yeah,” he says, shaking himself. “Let’s roll.”

Homicide. Not officially, but there’s no question. Victim is female, eight or nine years old. Not yet identified.  No children reported missing from Beacon County in the past forty-eight hours.

“Look away, Anna,” he mutters under his breath. Carl says nothing; he’s used to it. “Okay. Okay, people. Carl, Linda, start knocking on doors. This is a dead end street; unless they came through the woods, somebody has to have seen something. Kaya, get—”

“Romero on traffic cams? Already done.”

He cocks and eyebrow at her, and she looks down at her feet, so like Stiles it nearly makes him laugh. “Sorry, just thought, you know, time …”

“Good. You’re with me. ME on the way?”

“Should be, yeah.”

“Feel like digging around in the woods?”

“When don’t I feel like digging around in the woods?” 

He grins at her. In another life, where he and Anna had met and married earlier, where Stiles had a big sister  … well. Anna would have liked her, anyway.

—

“Blunt force trauma, but I hope you knew that already.” The new ME is short, stocky, and smells like mothballs.

“Shattered skull does point in that direction, yes. Any idea what kind of weapon we’re looking for?”

“Decently long, relatively thick. This isn’t a golf club or a pipe kind of thing. I’m gonna go with baseball bat, for now, or something similar. We’ll see if we’ve got any splinters, fibers, foreign matter, whatever.”

“Whatever?”

“Yeah. Whatever. I’ll call you from the lab.”

He watches as the little body is zipped away, stomps down on the shivers that latch onto his spine. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and the photo of Stiles that pops up on the screen—complete with fake moustache and goofy smile—is almost too much for him.

“Hey, kid.” Anna used to call him “kid.” He never did, before she died. He doubts anyone noticed but him. God, he needs a break from her, the ghost-scent of her dancing around his head. Worse lately than it’s been in years. His boy is drifting. That’s probably it. Kaya says he seems lonely. But they grow up, don’t they? Don’t want one of those thirty-year-old still-lives-in-the-basement kids, do you?

“Dad. Um. So. There was a thing. That may or may not have taken place.”

He sighs and scrubs his eyes.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“That completely depends on how you feel about Ikea.”

‘Ikea?”

“As in, we should go there. To get a new kitchen table. Because ours is kind of …”

“Stiles … “

“Retired? On the PUP list? Gone to the great second-hand furniture shop in the sky?”

He heads back to the cruiser, tipping his head to Kaya, who ducks into the passenger seat with a knowing smile.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

The boy sputters. He can hear the wheels turning in his head, even over the phone. “We-e-ell, let’s just say that I could blame it on Isaac. I could. But I won’t. Because a) Isaac has enough shit to deal with, and b) I am an adult who can take responsibility for my own shit.”

“Stiles.”

“Stuff.”

He starts the car, but leaves it in park. He’s always getting on Kaya for the talking-and-driving thing.

“There’s a card table out in the garage. Use that for now. You know where it is?”

“The green thing? Yeah. Got it. Thanks dad. Sorry.” The boy exhales, and it sounds shaky, thick. “I’m really sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

This twisting between his ribs has been happening a lot lately. There are so many hidden things behind every conversation, too many to trace, and it’s like a constant ache. He imagines how Anna felt, the disease growing inside her, the unrelenting pressure of it. Christ, there she is again.

“It’s just a table.”

“Yeah.” The boy sniffs, muffled.

“I’ll see you at home. Probably late—it’s going to be a long one.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Not to you. Stay inside, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” He won’t, but what’s the harm in pretending. Until the bag zips up and the little body wheels away. Not so little anymore.  _I’m an adult who can take responsibility._

When the boy first started school—all day school, not the half-day kindergarten—The Sheriff had spent a night, just one, waiting to fall asleep, wishing that he was sick. That his own son was sick. Nothing life-threatening, just … a heart murmur. Bad lungs. Something off in his blood that made him stay at home. He was so ridiculously  _little_ , back then, back before the seventh-grade growth spurt. And he smiled too big at people he didn’t know. It was terrifying. Utterly, bone-breakingly terrifying, the intensity with which he loved this kid. He never thought he’d be a father, growing up. Never thought he was the type, but Anna was and he would do anything for her. And then this little thing appeared out of nowhere like some kind of cosmic event, this singularity sucking everything into him, bending reality and logic and physics, just by smiling too big. He smiled at the kids who pushed him off the monkey bars, broke his arm. Like he couldn’t be mad if he tried, even though he cried straight through the ride to the hospital and the doctor’s exam. He still tried to smile at everyone, all watery and confused. And far from resenting the kid, hating him for sucking away the rest of his life, he just wanted to keep him in the house and never let go of his shirt collar. 

Of course, when Anna got sick he couldn’t stop thinking of that night, when he stayed awake and wished for sickness, thinking he’d brought it on them. When Stiles was given three weeks off of school after the funeral, he felt like God was throwing it in his face. He barely talked to the boy for the whole month, watched him stare out the window or look up into strangers’ faces from restaurant booths and try to smile. It was like he couldn’t help it, like he had to do it, but he couldn’t muster the energy anymore. Like when his dad cleaned the baking pans the day after Anna moved into the hospital permanently. Just running them under the water and shoving them in a cupboard. No one cared. No one touched them for years.

“Sheriff? You all right?” Kaya was squeezing the cross strap of her seatbelt, tightening and releasing. He  knew the little body was getting to her, too, so he gave her a quick nod and pulls out down the dead-end street.

Her cell rings before they’re two blocks away. She flicks it open and answers with brusque professionalism. “Tallbear. What? Don’t you have people for that?” She give a rueful chuckle. “Take it up with the mayor. Yeah, you owe me a drink, though. Back in ten.”

She snaps the phone shut and rolls her eyes at the Sheriff. “They need shovels.”

“No one brought shovels?”

She gives him a look that says  _beggars can’t be choosers_ , but he doesn’t want to discuss the unexpected re-staffing of the station, or the events leading up to it, so he turns off towards home.

“The station—”

“I’ve got shovels in my garage; it’s a hell of a lot faster than going all the way back.” She nods her assent and settles back into the seat, drumming her nails on the armrest until he taps her wrist, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s just— When it’s kids, you know? When it’s a kid.”

He doesn’t respond.

The garage is a mess. Apparently Stiles’ version of ‘knowing where something is’ is more like ‘I can find it if I dig through everything else first.’ The Sheriff sighs, shakes his head, and goes for the corner where he remembers throwing a pair of shovels sometime last summer.

The bat

just sits there

and everything

shatters.

“Dad! Hey!” The boy stumbles into the doorway, damn haired and grinning, shirt half tucked in to hastily pulled-on pants. 

He can’t look away from the thing. It’s cracked up the middle and  _caked_ , just  _caked_  with the stuff. He can’t speak; he wants to be sick but he can’t turn away.

“Dad?” The boy bounces down the steps and into the garage, bare feet slapping on concrete. He freezes. He presses his hands over his ears and his whole body trembles. When he looks back up at his father, his eyes look all white, like an animal.

“You were my son,” the Sheriff says; he has to say something, has to.

“Dad, I can— Let me— I  _can_ —”

“You can explain?” He can’t keep his voice steady, can’t see anymore, his boy has blood under his fingernails. “You can explain it away? Do it. Do it now! Tell me now!”

“I—, Oh God, I didn’t—”

“Nine years old, Stiles! Jesus. Oh, Jesus Christ.”

“What?” He takes a step forward, forehead wrinkled. The Sheriff wants to slap him, shake him, something, because the kid should not look confused at a time like this. He doesn’t get to stand there with his eyebrows drawn up in the middle like Anna’s always were, he doesn’t get to ask questions like it’s any other day, like he’s turning to his dad for—

“Who’s nine years old? Dad?”

Things are upside down, suddenly, he’s staring at the concrete floor with his hands pressed against his temples.

“This doesn’t happen. Not to real people. This does not—”

“Dad, what happened?” He’s reaching for him, the boy is reaching for him and he has blood under his fingernails.

“I’m gonna be sick.”

“Dad—”

“Don’t call me that.”

The boy jerks back, his face broken open. 

“A nine year old girl. I just loaded her into an ambulance. Just tell me why you did it.”

“Dad—” his voice cracks, like a kid, like a little kid, and it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, not with the blood under his nails. What does it mean that is still hurts so much? What does that make him?

“Just tell me—”

“It wasn’t me! Dad. This. Okay. This, here,” he picks up the bat and it’s like his whole skeleton rearranges itself, like his limbs snapping into place. The Sheriff flinches back, backs into the old grill and the boy holds up his hands. He stares at his father and starts to cry. “Please. Don’t be scared, okay? Look, this was somebody else. His name’s Andrew Laurent, from Nevada. His wallet’s upstairs. Dad, please. You can take it, you can test the DNA if you want.”

“Jesus, Stiles.” How is he standing? How is he still standing? He wants to stop breathing.  _Anna, Anna, come get me, Anna, I can’t do this I can’t_

“There’s a lot I haven’t been telling you, and I’m sorry—”

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus—”

“But I will. I promise, I’ll tell you everything. I know people who can help. Just— Just come with me to Scott’s or to Doc Deaton—”

“The v _et_  is involved in this?”

“Yeah. No. Well, yeah. Just please, please let me explain, let me show you—”

He’s silenced by a blaring car horn. 

“Kaya,” the Sheriff breathes, rubbing his face. “I have to—”

“Please, Dad. Don’t. Don’t tell her, please, she won’t understand it.”

He doesn’t listen, grabbing a garbage bag and holding it out to the boy. The boy hesitates, face twisted up, before dropping in the bat.

“Let me come with you. Please, let me come, let me explain.”

“You.” It’s a command, and the boy freezes. “You stay here. You don’t move from this spot. I’m taking this to the lab. If you run, don’t think we can’t find you.”

“Dad—” he chokes it out, staring. Is he trying to smile again? Don't let him, don't let him try. 

“If you call anyone, don’t think we can’t trace it. You stay here. I’m gonna take this to the lab, and then I’ll know. I’ll know if I have to—”

“Okay.” The boy sinks down onto the concrete steps, hands held out in front of himself. “Okay. I’ll be here.”

He holds the bat away from himself, wrapping the mouth of the bag around his hands. He hears the boy cry behind him and pretends that there is no pull, nothing scratching at the back of his neck. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he turns down the driveway and pretends not to hear, wishes he were back in the days when sorry was enough.


	7. Biohazard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite how I wanted it to turn out, but oh well.

_“I never want to quit playing ball. They’ll have to cut this uniform off of me to get me out of it.” ~Roy Campanella_

_—-_

The Boy is, as boys tend to be, a solid structure of bones surrounded by varying layers of muscle, fat and organs, covered by a mostly-continuous encasement of skin. Veins and nerves presumably meander through this mass like subway tunnels, carrying bits and pieces from center to extremities and back again.

Of this much, the Doc is sure. Relatively sure. He hasn’t opened The Boy up yet, but he’s taken X-rays and scans and everything seems to be in order. 

“I need your express consent,” he says, briskly, looking over the chart.

“I already gave it.”

“For the scans, yes. And for the blood draw. I need it for the surgery. I’d normally have you sign something, but I’m not particularly keen on a paper trail for this particular …”

“Lesson? Experiment? Investigation?” The Boy teases. “Party?”

The Doc looks at him blankly, tapping the chart.

“Fine. Consent given. This is consent. Color me consenting.” The Doc nods and turns to his table. “You don’t like me much, do you, Doc?”

“Needless to say, none of this should be mentioned to anyone but Scott, Derek, and possibly your father. I don’t need to explain the … awkwardness  this could cause for me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” The Boy sighs, hopping up onto the operating table. “And in forty years when I get my first real colonoscopy, I’ll act all surprised and everything.”

The Doc grunts and pulls on a pair of scrubs.

“You don’t like me,” The Boy says, again.

The Doc sighs, falls quiet for a moment. “I don’t dislike you. You remind me of me.”

“Oh. So it’s a self-loathing thing. I feel better.”

“You  _reminded_  me of me, I should say, and then this happened. I don’t entirely know what to make of you. My obligation is to what’s left of the Hales and their pack. I’m not sure where you fit in that … whole thing. And I’m not sure I trust you.”

“I don’t know anything, either. I never asked for any of this, Doc. I’m doing the best I can.”

The Doc holds his gaze for along moment, until he looks down as his knees, dangling off the edge of the table. “I’m not sure that’s true,” The Doc says quietly, turning his back with an air of finality. The Boy opens his mouth, shakes his head, stays silent.

“What’s in the bag?” The Doc asks, scrubbing his hands at the stainless steel sink. 

The Boy shrugs. “Some clothes, pajamas, toothbrush. Stuff to read. Bat.”

“You’re not staying at home?”

“Not all the time. It’s better for my dad if I’m not there all the time. I’m staying at Scott’s sometimes.”

“How often?”

“Three, four days a week? Something like that. His mom doesn’t mind.”

The Doc gives him a long look, and he twitches. “He didn’t kick me out or anything. My dad. I just think— He’s trying to decide between locking me in and installing a fucking GPS implant and kicking me out and pretending I don’t exist. So I’m trying to find a happy medium, I guess?”

“You were cleared.”

“I was never un-clear in the first place. But it’s still— It’s sticky. I’m … sticky, I guess. They never found the actual killer, and unless he has a face to put with a crime, he gets twitchy. And I'm not-- Well. I'm not really what anyone wants for a kid, am I?”

The Doc nods thoughtfully and takes a long wooden box out of a cupboard.

“What’s that?”

“The procedure I am planning to perform today, as I warned you, is not one I am overly familiar with. I've only done small-scale versions, usually on animals who don't asks too many questions. I like to think that my work, in general, bridges the perceived gap between possible and impossible.”

The Boy fidgets on the table. “No offense, Doc, but this seriously sounds like a monologue.”

“What?”

“A comic book monologue. You know, when Baron Zemo finally has Cap just where he wants him, so he starts going on about his big plans and—”

“Stiles.”

The Boy quiets, swinging his feet.

“I was planning on teaching you about all of these, at some point.” The Doc opens the box and begins removing vials, sachets, and what look to be mint tins. “Now, I guess we’ll see. As I was saying—monologuing—I tend to work in the spaces between pure science and pure magic. This … concoction is a bit of both.”

He begins to shake bits of things into a large, shallow bowl. A few leaves from a small net bag, a handful of pills, a kind of sticky orange paste that he has to scrape out of the teaspoon with a straw. He moves with a practiced ease, a furrow of concentration cutting into his brow. The Boy isn’t sure if his constantly moving lips are measuring, counting, or reciting incantations.

“Mortar and pestle,” The Boy says, gleefully. “Really? That’s so … old school. I mean. They have food processors and shit nowadays.”

The Doc doesn’t respond, finishing his grinding and scraping the concoction out into a saucepan that sits on a previously unnoticed hot plate.

“This medicine will help with the procedure—”

“You keep saying ‘procedure.’ You mean surgery, right? Open me up, poke at some important bits, zip me back up and send me on my way.”

“That’s the basic idea, yes.”

“Then what’s with the witchy stuff? Am I too non-human for regular scalpels? Am I a biohazard?”

“Oh, no. Standard surgery would be perfectly effective. I’m quite sure of it. But this isn’t standard surgery. I need you awake.”

The Boy does not splutter or wave his arms or run out of the room. The Doc notices, adds it to his mental list of Ways In Which The Boy Has Changed. Where before a threat would send him running in the opposite direction, babbling like a madman, this new Boy stills, his spine straightens, his palms flatten against his thighs. He doesn’t turn, he just waits.

“Awake.”

“Yes.”

“I feel like I would have remembered that. If you’d said it before.”

“I didn’t.” He waits for a refusal, casting a glance towards the unlocked door. The Boy just waits. The Doc sighs. “I need to see what happens when you shift.”

“Turn,” The Boy interrupts.

“Sorry?”

“The wolves shift. I turn.”

The Doc slowly adds something from a large plastic bottle to the steaming pan, stirring gently.

“This compound makes it possible for me to perform surgery for a short period of time without anesthetic and with a remarkable amount of cleanliness. It stops some of the blood flow. Similar to what you did to Derek.”

“What did I do to Derek?”

“When you sucked out his poison. He wasn’t able to heal completely after that, but his body stopped itself from bleeding, tearing, infection. He hasn’t shown you?”

“I haven’t really—” The Boy fidgets again. “Haven’t really seen Derek. Since then.”

The Doc stops stirring to stare at him. “He knows you’re all right, though?”

The Boy shrugs. “Somebody probably mentioned it. He hasn’t called or anything, so he can’t be too worried.” 

"He was very worried."

"He's gonna be the death of me." The Boy scratches at his scalp, looking up at the light. "Not his problem, anyway."

The Doc shakes his head and turns off the hot plate. “This is going to hurt,” he says simply, pouring a portion of the solution into a glass vial. “I need you to strip, now.”

The Boy does, without comment. He takes the vial and raises an eyebrow at The Doc.

“It’s going to burn. Just take it in one shot.”

The Boy grimaces and does, feet kicking against the leg of the table, tears springing into his eyes, face screwing up. The Doc turns away to stir at the saucepan, and listens to the uneven gasps behind him.

“I’m going to have to restrain you. Paralyze, actually. The body naturally reacts to pain, and it’s too dangerous to have you move around.”

“K-kanima venom?” Stiles whispers, eyes squeezed shut.

“A modified form, yes. With the right amount of … will, it should give you a bit of a boost on your healing. I’ll need to inject, so if you’ll just turn— Yes, that’s perfect.”

The Boy flinches when the thick needle goes in, and the Doc guides him down onto the table. 

“Doc,” The Boy rasps. “You got anything for my mouth?”

“Sorry?”

“My mouth. Something to bite or something? If I’m gonna— I’m gonna feel it, aren’t I?”

“I— Yes. The compound you drank should numb slightly. But yes, you’ll feel some of it.”

“You’re gonna want to find something for me to bite. Or inject my tongue or something. I don’t want to scream. I know I won’t be able to stop it. Doc, I don’t want—”

“Okay. Yes, yes, okay.” The Doc starts going through cupboards, taken aback and somewhat shaken. The Boy’s eyes follow him, cautious and vulnerable. He finds a basket of chew toys and pulls out a fraying rope. He hesitates before turning around, not sure if the insult is bad enough to waste precious time. The venom won’t last forever. He turns back to The Boy, who gives him a wry smile.

“O-o-kay then,” The Boy says, and opens his mouth, growling a little. The Doc rolls his eyes and fits the rope into the waiting mouth, silently grateful for the joke. 

The Doc gives his saucepan one last stir before finding a brush and spreading the liquid over The Boy’s skin. It goes red immediately, irritated by the heat but not quite burnt. The Boy shuts his eyes, breath coming in loud whistles through his nose. The Doc takes advantages of the moment and starts to cut.

It takes about a minute for The Boy to go into shock, a few more douses of cooling liquid preventing any lasting damage. The Doc goes silent and focused, every muscle coiled and tense. His will keeps The Boy together. Despite his distrust, his insecurity, his fear, he still wills The Boy whole. His will stops blood in veins, turns fluids temporarily to jelly. Allows lungs to move. 

When The Boy stops making noises, he panics for a second. He’s just drifting, though, pain pushing him halfway to unconsciousness.

Everything is normal. As normal as a living, conscious body opened up on his table can be.

“Stiles,” he says quietly, and The Boy whimpers. “Give me a blink if you’re all right. Are you all right?”

The Boy pushes at the rope with his tongue, working it out of his mouth. The Doc takes it.

“I’m all right,” he breathes, barely voiced. “Doc. I.”

“I know, I’m sorry. It’ll be over soon.”

“It’s amazing. It’s scary.”

“Try not to talk, okay?”

“You could ask me questions,” he continues, ignoring the command. Or maybe he is trying, trying and failing. “You could hold my heart in your hand and then you’d know if I was lying. You could. Just like they do.”

The Doc continues as he has been, prodding gently, observing. The Boy gives an involuntary cry.

“What?”

“Hurts,” he cries out, gritting his teeth. The Doc brushes a load of compound over him, willing the pain down. It seems to work, a bit.

“Stiles?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I need you to turn for me, okay?”

“I’ll try,” he grunts and shuts his eyes. The Doc waits for a moment while The Boy strains, unmoving, sweat beading on his forehead.

“Hit me,” he gasps out.

“What?”

“It’s easier if you hit me. Give me something to— Just  _do it_ , okay?”

The Doc hesitates for a long moment, then reaches across and strikes him solidly in the face. The crack of it rings in his ears, making him flinch, and The Boy’s skin goes bright red, sure to bruise. A shudder runs through him, starting at his paralyzed shoulders. The Doc hisses a gasp when the body turns warm under his hands. 

His blood turns black. The Doc doesn’t understand it, but that’s what happens. His blood, red at the moment of contact, turns black, dark and shiny as ink. It keeps running, doing what blood usually does. It’s just black.

“Does it feel different?” The Doc asks. The Boy looks at him, blankly. “Your blood is different. Does it feel— What do you feel, right now?”

The Boy just stares at him, silent and still. He blinks. His lips part, but shakily, inelegantly. Like he can’t quite control them, like a newborn trying to speak. He shuts them again, tightly, and narrows his eyes.

“Can you hear me?” The Doc asks, then laughs at himself at the idiocy of the question. He points to his ear and cocks and eyebrow, a question. The Boy jerks his chin to the side, as much of a shake as he can manage. The Doc nods.

He pokes around a bit more, getting a sharp nasal inhale in warning when he scrapes the edge of a mirror along a rib.

“I’m closing you up now,” he says, unnecessarily. He talks to animals, though. It’s about the same thing.

He can stitch in his sleep, straight and delicate. He never promised that it wouldn’t scar, but he can help the healing as much as possible. The Boy drifts, sweaty and uncomfortable as the venom wears off and the pain sets in.

“Recovery is going to be rough. Can you hear me?”

The Boy gives a little whimper and rolls his head to the side.

“I’m going to get you some painkillers, okay? Don’t try to move yet.”

The Doc peels off his gloves and brushes the top of The Boy’s head—not affectionately, not quite—and slips into the office.

He hears the door open before he can find the pills and rushes back out in a panic. He has one hand on his concealed holster, the other at the mountain ash in his pocket, ready to defend the helpless body on the table. It’s The Boy’s best friend, though, face falling into horror as he takes in the room.

“Scott—” The Doc starts, but he goes unheard. The best friend is at the table in two strides, fingers tracing bandages, breath coming in gasps.

“What happened, Doc? Oh my God, what happened? Is he—” He tilts The Boy’s face with gentle hands, watching the eyelids flutter. “Stiles?” he whispers. His thumbs run in patterns over The Boy’s overwarm cheeks, down the sides of his neck. “Come on, man. Talk to me.”

“Scott, it’s fine.” The Doc gets a hand on his shoulder before he prods at something tender. “He’s fine. He’ll be coming around soon. Watch him for a second, okay?”

He nods, dumbly, as The Doc leaves the room. He takes his time finding painkillers, pretending choose between two different bottles. When he gets back in the room, the friend has pulled a chair next to the table and is sitting with his chin resting on folded arms.

“What happened, Doc?” he asks, quieter this time.

The Doc taps his fingers on the pill bottle for a  moment. “We were trying something. Trying to figure out what … well, you know.”

“And?”

“I’m not sure yet. He’ll be all right, though. I’m going to check on a few other patients. Do you mind staying?”

The friend shakes his head.

“Give him these when he wakes up. Make sure he drinks water. Don’t let him sit up too fast. Tell him— Tell him he did well, okay? He did really well.”

The friend stares up at him silently, brown eyes gone piercing. He doesn’t do that often, stare through someone like he’s opening them up. It always throws The Doc off, makes him feel uneven, shaky. He gets a nod, though, and a clear dismissal. The Boy’s best friend scoots closer, sets one hand in the middle of his chest and one cupping the top of his head.

The Doc exits, silently, to wash the rest of the blood off his hands.


	8. Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is now a playlist, found here: http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Summertime/79006716

_“His face looks like a closed fist.”  ~Jim Murray, about Hank Bauer_

_\-------------------_

The Boy shivers, but he doesn't seem to notice. It's colder than any of them expected. The Man and The Sheriff stand side by side, watching him from a few yards away. The Boy's shirt is torn, hanging off one shoulder and spattered with bits of killer. He swings the bat back and forth like an afterthought, like nothing, like he's on deck, or not even-- like he's next in line at the batting cages but isn't in any kind of hurry at all. He's facing away from them, considering the body on the ground.

The Sheriff thinks of mentioning the shirt, maybe a joke, but he can't think of the exact words for it. He has an urge to lean towards The Man Who Is With His Son and say "A joke about the shirt." Those exact words. Like they'd fill themselves in on the way to The Man's brain. "Insert text here." It blinks like a cursor behind his eyes, and he thinks that maybe he's spent too much time on the computer, trying to figure this kid out.

He's learned nothing. That's why he's here. That's why he's watching.

"It doesn't get any less weird," The Man says, leaning in towards him but speaking at normal volume. "Watching him, I mean. Knowing how he is. You know this doesn't change him, right? He's still Stiles, when he's not this."

The Sheriff shakes his head, slowly. "Why would this happen," he asks in a whisper. "Why would this happen if it wasn't already in him?"

The Man doesn't look at him, watches The Boy drop into a squat and run his bat against the baggy leg of his jeans, nostrils flaring in frustration as he looks for a clean stretch of fabric. The Man looks almost affectionate, just for a second, then looks blank again.

"You don't need to whisper. He can't hear you."

The Sheriff shudders, but keeps it small, unnoticeable. He's found, over the years, that he can channel a shudder into his jaw and clench it tight, grind his teeth around it so it can't get out. At least keep it under his clothes, where the goosebumps aren't visible. He's seen a lot. He's not sure what it means that he can keep it in around The Boy, that The Boy is no better and no worse than a triple homicide or a rape and murder. He's not sure if that makes him a very good father or a very bad one.

The Boy twists in the grass, grabbing at his jeans like a dog chasing his tail. The Man takes a deliberate step forward and The Boy freezes. He rises in one movement, hips and shoulders in straight lines, arms loose and twitching at his sides. The Man stops, looks him in the eye.

The Boy notices The Sheriff and his eyes widen. He drops the bat, and his fingers grasp around empty air, like they haven't noticed that it's gone. His eyes flick between his father and The Man and the body on the ground, and his knees bend slightly. He's prepared, to run or to pounce or God knows what. The Sheriff sticks his hands in his pockets, leans back on his heels.

It's a move that The Boy should recognize. It says "Hang on a sec and let me look at you." It says "No, you're not in trouble. Yet." It says "Let me think if there's a way to answer this question that'll keep you in the house and out of my hair for the next forty-eight hours." If The Boy doesn't recognize it 

Well.

The Boy cocks his head to one side, shifts his hips and then his shoulders. His right shoulder moves awkwardly, like the bat is still there as a phantom weight. Not awkward, though, not the right word. Blinking cursor again. Uneven, asymmetrical, maybe.

He pulls his lips back from his teeth, and that's awkward. That's uncomfortable and unnatural and it's an animal move. His teeth are pressed together in front, showing both rows of teeth stacked on top of each other in a way that humans' don't. Shouldn't. His lips pull back and he bares his teeth and his eyes are bright but not smart, shining but not sparking like usual. The Sheriff takes a step back. He expects a growl or a lunge or a drip of blood from between The Boy's teeth. He stumbles back again and his hands slip out of his pockets and The Boy's eyebrows are pushing down and he looks like he might be angry and he takes a step forward and cocks his head again and The Sheriff takes another step and tries to swallow his heart back down because it's jumped up to someplace between his ears and he knows the bat's on the ground but his heart doesn't, his stomach doesn't and The Boy steps forward again and his hand comes up

And The Man is there. The Sheriff stops when The Man moves into his line of sight. The Boy stops, too, head cocked, watching. The Man reaches out, slow and gentle, and runs his palm over the top of The Boy's head. He doesn't say anything, but he nods and leans closer and rubs the short hair until The Boy is leaning against his shoulder. 

There's a shaky breath from one of them, or both, and when The Boy straightens he's all elbows and fidgets and intelligence again. He doesn't step away from The Man, looks at the body behind him. 

"Okay?" he asks quietly, and The Man nods. The Boy looks at his father. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"Trying to figure it out," he answers, though it wasn't a question. His voice is scratchy and thick, like his heart scraped the voicebox on it's way back down.

"Stiles," The Man says. "Smile."

"What?"

"Just smile."

The Boy looks confused but then he smiles, teeth in order, lips curving at the corners. It's not a real smile, it's a school-picture smile or a tell-the-shrink-you're-fine-smile. But it's his. The Sheriff feels his heart settle back in place, breathes in deep. 

"What?" The Boy says but The Man just looks at him and nods again.

"We didn't mean to startle you," he says. "Just wanted to see. Any theories, Sheriff?"

The Sheriff shakes his head. Half of him wants to take The Boy's face between his hands and rub out all the unnatural echoes. The other half might want to 

Well.

"Doc already looked at everything. He doesn't know. I'm just wrong on the inside. Simple as that."

"You're not wrong. You're just--"

"Different?" 

The Man doesn't like being laughed at, but it's clear The Boy doesn't care. The Man straightens his torn shirt, doesn't look at his face. "It's not about being wrong or right on the inside," he says deliberately. "It's about what you do with it. Whatever's there. Whatever it looks like."

The Boy shrugs. He looks back at his father. 

"Let's go home," his father says, and it's something of a peace offering. He still won't let The Boy walk behind him, though. The Boy and The Man lead the way, side by side, and the Sheriff brings up the rear.

 _Whatever's inside,_ he thinks. He's not sure what that might mean, for either of them. Any of them. The Man thinks it's new, this thing with The Boy. He thinks something took over him, invaded him, infected him from the outside.

The Sheriff isn't sure. It looks like a switch being thrown, to him. Like something's been off and now it's on. It's been off, but it's been there. It was always there. Had to be. 

He wonders, again, what that makes him.


	9. Corners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, sometimes Derek does think in metaphors.
> 
> art by nininghasfeelings

_[](http://nininghasfeelings.tumblr.com/post/36038356190)_

_“The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.” ~Ernie Banks_

_\------------_

The Man wonders if the way he thinks about The Boy might be wrong. Not wrong in a sensational way, wrong like “ _inappropriate_ ” said with that articulated consonant and wrinkled nose. “ _Inappropriate_.” No. Wrong like— He thinks The Boy might be good for him.

Are you allowed to think that about people? Refer to people in terms of what they do for you? He doesn’t think The Boy is useful, a thing to be used.  But being around him makes The Man better. He thinks so, anyway. He doesn’t think The Boy is “ _useful.”_ He doesn’t. Not that awful kind of “ _useful_ ,” said with that cold hard sneer and knives coming out of her eyes that he should be more scared of, he should run but he doesn’t not because he can’t but because he can’t make himself want to—

And apparently now he’s having nightmares during the day. The Dead Man would call it progress (“Denial is the killer, Derek. The more conscious you are of your damage, the better you can use it.”) The Dead Man is an asshole. (“Damage is a gift, Derek. Scars, bites, burns, all of it. You’re just looking at it the wrong way.”  _Right. You’ve been so gracious about your gifts, Dead Man. Don’t even have the decency to stay dead. My gift isn’t good enough?_ )

He leans forward, sticking his neck out of the shelter of the doorway. It’s pouring, a constant, torrential rain that’s been going since noon. He allows himself to like it, soaking into the neck of his T-shirt, running down the sides of his head into his eyes, dripping off the end of his nose. He rolls his neck from side to side, humming quietly against he roaring in his ears. 

The point is, The Boy is good for him. Makes him smarter, calmer, steadier. He doesn’t even have to try, or at least it doesn't look like he tries. It’s just a side effect of being around him. The ghosts that gather in the dark corners of his brain don't seem to like him much. They don't hang around when The Boy is there.

He’s never been good with words, or he’d tell him. The Boy. He’d tell him. 

He knows what The Boy thinks of himself, that he is hateful, hated, twisted, wrong. The Man can’t make words work for him. He can’t line them up in neat rows and knock them down, shoot them straight into The Boy’s brain, make them stick. He never could get them to stand still for him, he’d look away for a second and they’d drift off into piles of impressions and temperature readings and twinges in his gut. 

Sometimes, though, he presses his fingers to the sides of The Boy’s head, and The Boy looks up at him, and it looks like he understands.

He’s never really been able to get anything out right. Get something out of his head and over to another person without warping it first. Actually—he stops himself for a moment, scratching the chilled back of his neck—that might not actually be true. He doesn’t really have memories that he can trust, not without Laura here to tell him where he’s right and where he’s wrong. Maybe when he was a kid he was just like everybody else. Maybe he sometimes had a hard time or he sometimes felt stupid, but mostly did okay. Maybe his parents were proud of him, and Laura introduced him as her baby brother and ruffled his hair. Maybe it’s just the looking back that makes everything look skewed and distorted. Like looking through twisted glass, funhouse mirrors. The bad things seems to last for years in his memories, the good things are like blinks of calming darkness between them.

(“That was the most mixed metaphor I’ve ever heard,” Laura teases. “You can do better than that, baby brother.”  _You never called me baby brother. Never, not once, not even once. You didn’t ever want me to be your problem, not until you didn’t have a choice._ “Says you.”)

The Man leans farther out from the doorway, tipping his head back. His lips are parted, and he spends a minute enjoying the slow roll of water down his face and into his mouth. He loves this part of it, the wolf part. The sounds of traffic down on the highway, the creaking of old pipes somewhere inside the warehouse, the subtle shifts in temperature as a little breeze finds itself between torrents of rain. Even the rhythm of it changes, speeding and slowing as clouds move overhead. The younger ones don’t get this part of it, too wrapped up in the human idea of seeing. 

If he had the words, like The Boy does, he could explain it. Maybe he could lead them through it and they wouldn’t be so scared all the time. Pointless to consider, anyway. He doesn’t have them. 

If he could shift, fully and completely shift, it wouldn’t matter. He has been wishing for the full shift since he was a kid, since he first saw his mother loping back up to the house on all fours, ears pricked and tail waving.  He imagines that it would feel like pieces falling into place, or like vertebrae stacking after a long night spent curled in a corner. He doesn’t know how, though. Never learned. He was too young, before, and now. . .  He’ll just stay too young. He’ll be too young until the day he dies. 

The Dead Man’s full shift was pitch black and monstrous. Much more monster than wolf. Laura was black with bits of grey, deep and natural and soft. He likes to think he’d be grey. Patchy, probably, not an elegant beast.

(“An elegant beast, aren’t you,” Kate whispers in his ear. “Did you do all this for me? You knew I’d come back, didn’t you? These arms are mine, aren’t they? They are. And the jawline. I like what you’ve done around the hips, the way you move them. I’m taking that, too. All of it.”  _Sure, dead girl. Take whatever you like. Not mine, anyway. I’m done with it. More trouble than it’s worth._ )

Not elegant, but strong. He crowds himself into the corner of the door, now, rain just splattering the toes of his boots. He can picture it, himself fully shifting and ambling through late-summer woods. The Boy beside him. He wouldn’t be huge and hulking, like Peter, but he’d be tall enough for The Boy’s hand to brush his back as they walk. The Boy’s bat propped up on his shoulder, bouncing with each step and spinning between long fingers. No words. The Boy would turn, settling into silence, and between The Wolf’s ears and The Boy’s eyes and The Wolf’s teeth and The Boy’s bat and The Wolf’s warmth and The Boy’s warmth and the hum of late summer they would be fine.

It’s not a realistic dream. Of course. Nothing like that can last. He shakes his hair out in the doorway and slips back inside to change. It wouldn’t be a forever thing, but it might be a nice moment to have. He can appreciate moments, as long as he doesn’t have to explain them.

He couldn’t stay a wolf forever. He  _could,_ he’s pretty sure it’s possible, but he wouldn’t. He’d miss things like books and chocolate and frozen pizza and being in on a joke and The Boy’s voice and The Boy’s voice and The Boy’s voice.

He’d miss The Boy’s voice. Even separate from the words he says, the voice itself settles something in those dark corners of his brain. If he didn’t speak any English, The Boy’s voice would be the same, to him.  To never hear it again, to lose it, it’s sad. It’s a sad thought.

(“‘Sad?’ Derek, I need you to think of a more expressive synonym for ‘sad.’” Mrs. Ranpura, his seventh grade English teacher, shakes her head at him. “Find a word that tells us more.”  _But it’s sad. It’s just sad. The idea._  “How does it make you feel?”  _Sad._  “Melancholy, desperate, depressed, wretched—”  _I don’t know. The achy kind of sad. Like when you take a bite out of an apple, but your sister had it in the fridge and it’s cold around your teeth. That cold ache around your teeth._  “That’s not a synonym, Derek, that’s a simile. A synonym is—”  _I know! I know what it is, I’m telling you what it feels like. It’s not a simile, it’s just what it is. It’s an ache in the teeth. A cold achy feeling around the teeth._  “That’s a metaphor, Derek. Derek, I’m not sure you’re really trying. You’re a smart boy, Derek, if you would just …”)

He is starting to take issue with the number of ghosts in his head. It should be limited to the dead. Mrs. Ranpura isn’t dead, as far as he knows. She moved, he remembers that. Her husband got some consulting job in Silicon Valley and they moved. But he doesn’t think she’s dead.

Laura was a ghost in his head before she died. Old Laura was, anyway. Old Laura teased him and talked too loud and played with his hair while New Laura pretended to sleep in the other room and sat up with her ear pressed to the wall to make sure he was still breathing. He felt bad about it—it wasn’t that he didn’t love New Laura. He did. More than the Old, sometimes, because she would ask him what he thought before she made any decisions and she would smile softly when he came home with groceries. But Old Laura was always there, making comments on New Laura’s hair and the lines forming around her eyes and telling him all the things New Laura would never, ever say aloud.

He loved her, though. He loved her, he loved her, he loved her so much. 

Loves.

_(Present tense, present tense, please, please, I still do, I always will.)_

She was His First and Only, that never ever changed. He loved her so much it hurt sometimes. Most of the time. His Laura. New and Old and His. She was a supermassive black hole, and he was all the matter in the universe. He didn’t  _want_  to do anything but love her, ever again. And then he dug her a grave and stared down at her, shadowed and dirt-smudged and tiny. And he thought it was the most inevitable thing he’d ever seen. You open a dictionary to the word “inevitable” and this is what you see. And he thought for a long moment of dropping in next to her, holding his breath until he can’t anymore, curling around her because he looked so cold like this. And realized there was no one else left, no one to shovel dirt over the pair of them, so he’d have to do it himself, and the realization was so absurd he started to laugh and it was more than sad— _you hear this? More than sad-_ -it was destroyed and burnt to the ground and gutted and razed. It was, he was, they were. 

He strips quickly and pulls on pajamas. It’s not even six, but he has nowhere to be. Maybe he’ll call The Boy. See where he’s staying tonight. If he had the words, he could maybe fix whatever’s broken between The Boy and his father. Maybe. The Boy has the words, but The Boy won’t use them. Doesn’t think it’s worth it, can’t see how it would help. 

He should call him, but what would he say? “Hello, Stiles, how’s being homeless? Want to trade tips?” or “Hi, Stiles, killed anyone lately? Yeah, me neither.” or maybe “I think you’re good for me, and I was wondering, if I were a wolf, would you walk with me sometime right as the leaves start turning and we wouldn’t have to say anything at all?”

Words. That’s what it comes down to. 

 _If I were a wolf_ , he thinks again, lips moving as he drops back on the mattress, _would you walk with me sometime right as the leaves start turning and we wouldn’t have to say anything at all?_


	10. Constant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how this whole piece is a series of vaguely-connected experiments? Still true.

_“I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn’t throw it past me, none of them.” ~Hank Aaron_

_\----------------_

There is a chilly breeze across Scott’s face and he wakes up on his back in the night-wet grass. He sits up and looks around, startled, but he’s alone.

The full moon is obscured behind a row of trees, and the sky is starting to grey out, just barely, towards dawn. He is flung out on the ground between two young trees, a few steps away from the creek. He may still be partially shifted, but he doesn’t really care. He’s alone, but not, with the shared heartbeats of the others humming under his fingertips. That’s where he feels them, at his extremities. Like they’re an extension of himself, bits of him that continue beyond his skin. He drops back down against the grass and smiles up at the clouded over night. He might start drifting.

Something shakes his foot.

“Mom?” he says, the immediately wonders why. He is shirtless in the middle of the woods, alone. His mother is nowhere near, but the feeling is.

“What did I tell you about calling me that? Melissa’s going to get jealous.”

“It was an accident.” It slips out of his mouth, before the confusion, because he’s pretty sure he isn’t awake. She’s sitting at his feet, facing towards the creek.

“Anna?”

Her head tips to one side, then the other, rolling out her neck. She worked at a desk all day, so her shoulders were alway tight.

“Are you okay, Scott?”

He pulls himself up to sitting, folding his legs self-consciously, crossing his arms across his knees. It doesn’t seem to matter, as she doesn’t look at him.

“What?”

“You haven’t had a very good year, have you? But you are happy, right? I’d hoped you’d grow up happy. You always seemed the type.”

She’s facing away from him, but her voice perfectly clear, as if she were speaking directly into his ear.

“Am I dreaming?”

She shrugs. “That’s your business.”

No one says anything for a long minute. She tips her head and lets the breeze play at her short hair. She must be real, then, Scott thinks. If the wind moves around her, if it doesn’t just go through her, she must be here. He should ask her questions, he should get up, run to his best friend, bring his best friend here.

He opens his mouth to say that, but the words trip over themselves on the edge of his lips, and “I really miss you” falls out and just sits there on the ground, looking at him.

She turns her head a fraction, he can see the edge of her jaw. It looks like his best friend’s face, from this angle. It’s smiling. 

“I miss you, too.”

He is relieved, tension sliding down his neck. If this is a dream, it isn’t a bad one.

“What are you doing out in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night?” she asks. He looks around. They are surrounded by a ring of purple flowers, wolfsbane, that he doesn’t remember seeing. He wouldn’t fall asleep in a ring of wolfsbane, would he?

“I’m a werewolf,” he says simply. She doesn’t seem to surprised.

“That’s new.”

He can’t help laughing, looking up into the dark leaves above him. He doesn’t remember her being funny. He remembers how she used to make his mom laugh, so hard that she’d cry, slamming her palm down on the table and gasping  _“Oh my God, Anna, stop! I’m actually going to die!”_  He was too little to get it, though, her dry twist of a half-smile. His best friend’s smile, now. She left it to him.

“Yeah. Stuff's been happening. I was in love, too. I might be in love. I don’t know, it’s complicated. There was a girl.”

“Was she nice?”

“Mostly.”

She nods, doesn’t ask anymore. The silence grows. He waits for her to say something. Ghosts usually come back with a reason, don’t they? He’s heard enough campfire stories. Listened to his best friend reenacting most of Hamlet to help him study for the English final. But she doesn’t seem to have anything to say. She’s just sitting comfortably within the ring of wolfsbane, smelling the air.

“Did you ever turn?” he asks suddenly.

“Turn what?” 

“Stiles turns. Now. It’s kind of new. That’s not from you? You never heard something crack inside your head and then …” he doesn’t know how to finish.

“Does he hurt people?”

Scott picks at the roots of a clump of wolfsbane. It makes his fingers itch. “Sometimes. Yeah. He’s not bad, though, he just—”

“I know. Nothing ever snapped for me. I didn’t hurt people. Not really.”

“I know you—”

“I wanted to, though. A lot. His dad never really got that, that sometimes it’s not about who you’re hitting, it’s just about the act of it. The contact. I didn’t give in to it, but I felt it. You aren’t like that, are you? You don’t get that feeling.”

Scott rubs mud between his fingers, soothing the itch. “I’m a werewolf now. I guess it’s not that different. But I don’t … like it. It comes from outside. With Stiles, it’s inside. I know it is. I don’t know what it means, but I know it comes from inside.”

“Does he scare you?”

“I—” Scott takes a moment. She always gave him time to think before answering. His best friend gets impatient if silence goes on too long, he always has. She would ruffle his hair and say  _Let him think, Stiles, for the love of God. He’s a being deliberate. It’s good to think before you speak._

“I love him,” he says finally. She nods like that’s an answer. “It’s like everything else changes. And he’s changing, too, but it’s not the same. I don’t feel like I’m losing him. Everything else, it’s like—” he picks a handful of grass and spins it between his fingertips, watching it fall. She nods, though she can’t see him.

“He’s your constant.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good.”

They’re quiet again, listening to the water. He imagines that she’s listening to the water, anyway. He wonders if there’s water where she came from. He doesn’t ask, though. It feels rude. Not really rude, but not allowed. Against the rules. And he doesn’t know if he wants her to answer.

“Am I?” he asks, quietly. He can’t really hear himself, but she does. It’s a dream. Of course she does.

“For him, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“You always were.”

“Good. Did you—” he shifts a bit. “Did you have one? Do you have one?”

She gives a little laugh. He can’t really hear it and he can’t see her face, but he feels it. Her laughing. “Yes, I do. My Melissa. Melissa  _mia._ ”

“I remember! You used to call her that all the time and she’d smack you with a spatula.”

“That was one time!”

“That was definitely more than one time. Speaking of people who like to hit—”

“Hey, she’s  _your_  mother!”

He snorts, and she laughs at him. “She was your constant?”

“It’s not like— You say it like it’s some magical Thing. It’s not; that’s just what I called her. I was hers and she was mine. Everyone has one. Most people just don’t notice.”

“You were married, though. You got married.” He wants to take it back as soon as he says it, but she doesn’t seem mad. She leans back on her elbows, closer to him but still not turning. 

“I was in love. You can do that, you know. Fall in love.”

“But—”

“It’s not the same thing. It’s not— I was in love because I  _wanted._  It’s a scraping wanting feeling, like I could have crawled inside his skin and it wouldn’t have been enough. With Melissa, it was just having. I always knew she was there, and I didn’t need anything else.  They don’t cancel each other out; it doesn’t have to be difficult. She was in love, too. For a bit.”

He grunts. He won’t waste this dream on Him. 

“Do you see the difference?” 

“I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I think I— I think maybe I want— I don’t know. I don’t know how I … feel. I guess.”

She shrugs. That used to drive his best friend crazy. The more he’d get worked up about something, some confession or secret or idea, the more casual she’d act. 

“You’ll figure it out. He’ll be there if you do. He’ll be there if you don’t.”

“Yeah. So,” he says after a second, leaning forward. “You don’t think my mom’s pretty, or what?”

“What?” she squeaks. She always gets a little squeak in her voice when she’s surprised.

“You just said you never wanted my mom,” he teases. “She’s not pretty enough for you, or what?”

She bursts out laughing and turns around. He stops breathing. She looks the same, exactly the same and she’s laughing and she’s looking at him and he doesn’t blink. He won’t ever blink again. And when did she get young? She was so young. He’d never really thought of her like that. Someday soon he'll be older than her. Most of his life he'll be older than her.

“Your mom is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah?” he breathes, forgetting the joke entirely, because he sees those exact eyes every day of his life. 

“You really want to know what we got up to back in the day?”

“What?” he can hear her, but his brain is stalling. “Wait, what? I mean— what? I mean no!  Oh my God! No! You’re kidding. You are kidding, right? Oh my God don’t tell me!” He claps his hands over his ears and she laughs at him. She doesn’t blink, either.

“Give her my love.” She wrinkles her nose. “That sounds so cold, like I’m lending her a book or something. Tell her I love her.”

“And Stiles, too? His dad?”

She smiles at him softly. “They know.”

There is a chilly breeze across Scott’s face and he wakes up on his back in the morning-wet grass. He sits up  and looks around, but he’s alone. Alone in the middle of a ring of wolfsbane. A few clumps have been pulled out, breaking the circle. There’s no one there.

He pulls out his phone, glad that it survived another full moon. He’s calling his best friend before he’s even decided what to say. 

“This is Stiles’ phone,” the voice sounds tinny, tired. “I’m not answering it. For whatever reason. If you’re calling with a request, or a favor, or a summons of any kind, just assume the answer is ‘No’ and get on with your life.”

Scott hangs up before the beep. He doesn’t really know what to say, but he feels better. 

He steps through the break and heads home.

“Good night?” his mom asks, looking up from the kitchen table as he comes in the back door.

“You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Bring home any game for me to gut? Maybe a deer head for the wall?”

“Sorry.” 

He drops into the chair next to her and she rises to pick leaves out of his hair.

“You should put a shirt on. It’s getting cold.” 

He shrugs. “I had a dream. Last night, I mean.”

“A wolf dream?”

He rolls his eyes but leans into her hand on the top of his head. “No. A people dream.”

“Mmm?”

“I—” He looks down at his hands, at the sun coming in and reflecting off the clean tabletop. She cleans when she can’t sleep sometimes. “Anna says hi. Anna says she loves you.”

The hand in his hair stills. He squeezes his eyes shut.  _She’s either going to leave and stay in her room all morning, or—_

She sticks her nose into his hair, rubs her forehead on the top of his head. Her voice is almost steady when she says “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good dream, then.”

He nods, leaning against her stomach. “The best.”

They rock back and forth a little, not for comfort, not the sick-and-scared after-funeral kind of rocking. Just a breezy kind of sway. Like humming without sound.

“You know what I’d like?” she asks.

“What?”  _Anna_. _Anna back. Stiles okay. Anna._

“Pancakes.”

He snorts into her shirt.

“I mean it. I’d really like pancakes. Some of us didn’t spend the night munching on squirrel kebabs.”

“Ew!”

“I’m making pancakes.” She makes to push away from him, but he wraps his arms around her waist.

“No, you’re not. You’re not allowed spatulas. Or frying pans. Not before coffee. I’ll just—

“Then I guess you’ll have to—”

“Call Stiles,” they say in unison, before collapsing into giggles. She drops into the chair next to him as he dials. Her eyes aren’t dry, exactly, but he’s smiling. He figures that’s okay. That’s good.


	11. The Bedtime Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember last chapter when I said "I don't even know"?  
> Still continuing in the not knowing thing.  
> Experiments with form! If you don't like this chapter, stay tuned. You might like the next one.  
> (also, 11 chapters for a Casey At the Bat quote? For shame.)
> 
> art by nininghasfeelings

_[](http://nininghasfeelings.tumblr.com/post/28744089538)_

_The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;_  
 _He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate._  
 _And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,_  
 _And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow. ~E. L. Thayer_

\----------

Somebody's grandmother told somebody's father a story one time (probably it was the same somebody, but you never can tell with second-third-fourth-hand cases like this. I heard it from Lea Calderoni, so take it with a big hunk of salt, 'cause I trust Lea Calderoni about as far as I can throw her big brother Josh who's a Marine.). It was a story about a Nightmare.

The Nightmare had a name, but you can't say it in the story. You just call him The Boy. The grandmother--and you always tell the story like you're the grandmother. Even if you're a guy. That's how it goes--the grandmother leans in close and says "You can't tell your little sister, 'cause she's not big enough yet and she'll get scared." And the child shivers, excited and proud, because he's finally big enough to hear the story.

 

"The Boy," you say, "had a bat. He wasn't just any boy with a baseball bat; he wasn't like any other boy. There was something broken inside of him, and the only way to fix it was to break the things outside of him.

"The Boy was beloved, but in a quiet sort of way. I loved him. In a quiet sort of way. But pretty soon I figured out he was a Nightmare. It was easy, once you knew what to look for. Blood under the fingernails. Bruises under the eyes. A twitch in the back of the neck.

"There was also a Man. I hated him, more than anything else I'd ever hated, ever in my life. Loud and angry and vicious, that was how I hated him. The Man had blood on his hands, but he washed them. He always scrubbed them so meticulously, so no one knew. A sweet smile and clean, clean hands. 

"I wasn't like this, back then. I was someone very different, with a very particular job to do. I was the Girl with the Promises. But that's another story. You've heard some of that story already, remember?

"I tracked The Man to a place deep, deep in the middle of the woods. You didn't grow up next to woods like I did, so you don't know how it gets out in the middle, where the trees grow tight together--not old trees, but not big open spaces of the new forests, either. Young trees twisted, growing close, angry. Young trees growing over the places old trees were cut down. Trees that remember, and you feel it coming off them in waves. You don't curl up at these roots, you don't sleep in these woods. Unless you're The Boy. The Boy can sleep anywher.

"Deep, deep in the middle of the forest, sounds start to confuse you. You see a movement in front of you, hear it behind you. Something about the acoustics, where the ground rises and falls and the rocks curve in unexpected ways. 

"I came to a kind of a clearing, a bow in my hands and a knife at my hip. Don't look so surprised, this is your family history, too. That same bow that hangs above your bed, that we told you would protect you from shadows and bad dreams. I came down a little hill into a shallow kind of pit, surrounded by rock and fallen leaves. The Man was there, with The Boy. They weren't speaking, facing away from me and looking up at the last of the leaves, the bare fingers of tree branches grasping at the last hour of sunlight. 

"I shot high and to the right, enough to make The Man turn. I do not shoot men in the back.

"He should have heard me coming, but something had his attention. The Boy maybe. There are stories about The Man and The Boy, hundreds and hundreds of them. You may have even heard some, though I doubt you knew what you were hearing. The story changes, depending on who you talk to; some of the stories I know are true, some I know are not, and some you won't be hearing until you're much, much older. And I certainly won't be the one to tell you those. 

"The Man turned, and I drew again.  I stepped forward, where The Man and The Boy stood frozen for a second, and I stepped on a piece of dry wood and the crack of it echoed off the rock, like a gunshot, and The Boy just turned. He shivered and shook and he wasn't my friend anymore, he was The Nightmare, and his bat was in his hand. I hadn't even noticed it, it was like a part of him. When you see your mother, you don't always notice her ears, or her eyebrows, or the curve of her shoulder, do you? 

"He stepped towards me, The Nightmare, and I couldn't move. There's a word for it, the feeling you get when something familiar is just a little bit wrong. Uncanny, that's what they call it. That's his face, his breath, his body, but the way he moves is wrong. The way his eyes glow--not like The Man's eyes glow, but not normal either. It's wrong. And when you have something like that coming at you-- there's no instruction book for that.

"The Man was speaking to him, shouting at him, but he didn't even flinch. The Man shifted and howled and my blood ran cold at the sound, but The Nightmare didn't hear. Couldn't hear. I said his name, over and over, I screamed it, and I felt the voice tear out of my lungs, and he didn't even flinch. Couldn't hear at all. 

"I didn't even see the swing, but I felt a sharp pain along my neck and I was carried to the ground. The Man stood over me, claws out and growling, taking hit after hit after hit. He grabbed The Boy, hard by the arms, fought him into stillness. The Boy let him, after a moment, twitching under his hands and rolling his neck as the turn wore off. 

"I won't lie, little one, I ran away. I grabbed my bow and I ran until I hardly knew where I was anymore. The my neck was bleeding--a long claw-scratch that ran from my ear down around the back, under my shirt. I panicked, because I knew what a scratch from The Man could do to me, but I knew more certainly what a bat to the head could do to me so I couldn't get angry. I wrapped up my neck with a chunk of my shirt and I realized that I couldn't get angry. I was too scared to get angry. I could fight anything; I had fought almost anything. But nothing that looked like my friend. Nothing quite so uncanny. I went home, and had nightmares for the next few years, but I lived and I fought and I grew up.

"That's the last time I ever used that bow. The one in your bedroom. Since that day, that bow has fought nothing but bad dreams. That was the last shot I ever fired at that Man.

The Boy? I'm not sure, exactly. I left town not long after. He kissed me goodbye, but it wasn't the same as it used to be. I let him, because he was still himself most of the time, but when I got in the car and pulled away I shivered and shook and scrubbed my cheek raw with the sleeve of my jacket. I never asked after him, not after that day.

"I heard stories, though.

"They say The Man undid him. He took him apart, piece by piece, until there was nothing left. Peeled off his skin with a paring knife, one long piece. Folded it like bedsheets. Cut muscles away from bones, but neatly, carefully, slicing gently at the joint and then coiling tendons like microphone cables. Sucked the bones dry of marrow, licked them clean and set them, hollow, organized by length. They say The Boy couldn't die, you see. And after that, The Man was gone. Never heard from again."

And then you wait. You, as the grandmother, you wait and look at the child, and the child thinks for a second and says, "Grandmother, is that all true?" And you laugh and say "It's a story, little one. It's just a story." And you sweep dark hair back from your shoulder--dark but slowly going white--and the child sees the mark on your shoulder. Long and curved, connecting ear to spine, like a corner or a letter C or the trail of a bat-swing. And you say "It's all just stories."

 

And, like I said, I heard this first from Lea Calderoni, so you take it with a grain of salt as big as, like, those things deer come and lick from. But I'll tell you one thing. Last week I woke up in the middle of the night. Or I thought I did. And there was a Nightmare standing at the foot of my bed. A Boy, one long lean line, with a bat over his shoulder. He looked at me, didn't say anything, and his eyes glowed. Not, like, alien-glow, but like a stained glass window on a day that's only a little bit sunny. That kind of glow, that comes from behind. Inside, maybe. And he didn't smile or make a face, just looked at me and tipped his head to the side. Curious, maybe. And I sat up and curled up against the wall and I was so scared, and he just looked curious. And then he dropped his bat against the foot of my bed, you know, the foot board. And it cracked there, loud, so loud it made my head ring. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. And I looked at him and I looked at the bat and I screamed and I screamed, and it was so loud it hurt my ears and I knew I'd wake up the whole neighborhood, but he just looked at me. He just looked at me like he couldn't even hear it, and I knew. He couldn't hear it at all.


	12. Spit

_My arm feels good. My legs will be all right. How long will I go on? How long can I go on? How long for I want to go on playing baseball? Is this what it’s like to be thirty?”  ~Johnny Bench_

—————

He will not turn. He refuses to give them the satisfaction of kicking an animal. He knows these types, knows the feeling of power they get when something big and bright-eyed is made small and whimpering under boots. Knows the feeling of their skin splitting, their bones crunching, their grey matter slapping against the side of his neck as they go down.

That’s what he tells himself, anyway. A noble reason not to fight back. Really, he doesn’t know why they don’t just kill him, and he thinks if he stays human he might give them a reason not to. If they’re hunters, like he thinks they are, maybe they can forget what he is and let him go.

The problem is, he reasons in the middle of the first night, nose bleeding but otherwise just sore, the problem is: he said he was leaving. He had said the exact words, just the other day. “Derek. I’m leaving. Don’t come after me. Tell the others, okay? I just need a little time to myself.”

And now here he is. No one after him. Time to himself.

It makes him laugh, it really does, but only a quiet hiss between his teeth. The one with the brown shirt doesn’t like it when he laughs. 

He’s imagined being beaten up before. He _has_  been beaten up before, but mostly awkward middle school bullying—more loud noise and big movements than actual hitting. Intimidation stuff. But he’s got a sick imagination sometimes, and he’s thought about it. Maybe not a sick imagination, maybe just an imagination. He doesn’t know what anybody else thinks about, so he doesn’t know if he’s normal or not. He doesn’t feel normal, but he never really does. Never has.  He’s thought about getting hit, on days when he deserves it. Thinks of meeting himself in the woods. Thinks of his best friend’s teeth sinking into his neck and just pulling. Thinks about knives, long ones, slicing him up. 

He’s done it since he was a kid. Sat on his ankle in that way that’s way too crooked to be healthy, thinking maybe he could break it. Biting the knuckle on his thumb, thinking maybe this time he’ll keep going, break the skin. It can’t be that hard. His little cousin drew blood one time when they were roughhousing, and he was only like seven. Wrap the strings of his hoodie around his fingers so tight they turn blue and just leave them there for minutes, gnawing at the numb tips. Always while watching TV, reading, doing homework. It’s always been an absent kind of thing. Flirting with pain without really paying attention. He never really got into the habit of following through: bleeding, drugs, getting into fights. A brief flirtation with razor blades, but he felt like a stereotype. Every so often a paring knife to the meaty part of his palm, something he can pretend was an accident. Not that anyone asks. But he can tell himself it was an accident. Silly Boy, always so clumsy. 

Never made it much of a habit though.

The point, though. There was a point. He makes points when he’s by himself. Practice for when he isn’t alone. Get to the point, Boy, or are you just talking again? The Dad in his head doesn’t actually talk like the real Dad. He thinks the Dad in his head is the subtext that real Dad would never say out loud. He’s not sure though. Given that he’s stuck in this head and can’t even visit anyplace else. That seems weird. To him, anyway. Stuck in one body for a whole lifetime. One brain. Don’t you get sick of yourself? God, he gets sick of himself already and he’s not even eighteen yet. He can’t imagine being sixty. God, he can’t imagine being twenty. How do they do it?

The point. Hurting. He thinks a lot about hurting, but then who doesn’t? He watches Bruce Willis take his fifteenth punch to the jaw, watches Edward Norton laugh and spit blood, of course he’s going to think about it. How much can he take? He’s taken a lot. He’s taken knives to the back, he’s taken car parts to the side of the head, he’s taken more than one knee in the stomach. He’s taken surgery, a broken arm. But this is different. This isn’t a fight. This isn’t science. 

He’s thought about being tied up, being hit. In various contexts. He thinks it might turn him on, but he’s not sure. He thinks he might be at the part of life where  _everything_  turns him on. This is not like that, either. This is not big hands over his big mouth and teeth on his chest and repurposed neckties around his wrists. Okay, maybe he’s thought about that part a lot. 

This is dirty and dark and hateful. Just, hateful. He’s never been spit on before. It ran into his eye and his arms were behind him and he twisted his neck to try to rub it off on his shoulder but he couldn’t, so it stung and he kept his eye shut, but then he couldn’t see the slap coming from that side of his face so his stomach dropped with how unexpected it was. And his eyes watered as his nose started to bleed, and it mixed with mucusy spit, but he didn’t want to keep his eyes closed and they hit him again and he didn’t see it coming and he was so scared. At the same time, the same time as being so scared, he was pissed. One glob of spit to the face and he’s down for the count. He’s done. This isn’t how they do it in the movies.

He has his hands back now, so he scrubs at his eyes. They’re grimy and he knows his eyes are red and puffy and irritated, but every time he thinks of it, the spit, he has to be sure it’s all gone.

When he imagined it, he imagined the pain pretty accurately. Okay, no. No, he didn’t. But that wasn’t the most surprising part. He’s just so much more scared than he ever thought he’d be. It’s the dark, not complete, but close enough. The thick walls of the basement, unfinished concrete on all sides. The men by the door. Losing his bat. Not fighting back. That’s it, really. In all those movies, you can fight back. Even if you can’t fight back with fists, even if you’re tied, you have the lines. You have a script. Somebody spent hours at a computer giving you the perfect thing to say, you read it in the morning, you show up on set and a shy girl sprays you down with fake sweat and another paints a bruise on your cheek and the camera goes on and you spit the lines back at another pulled punch. You have all this ammunition and you don’t even need it. He gets it now. He doesn’t have a script; never has. Most of the time he thinks he does pretty well, but he can’t anymore. He’s got nothing. Blinking cursor. No bullets left. Empty chamber, click click click.

And—because of course he’s not done, he’s never done—if you can’t fight back and you don’t have lines, then you cut away. Fade to black. At least the soundtrack swells, covers the weird grunt the guy makes when he hits you, the way you sound when you gasp and choke on your own spit. They don’t film that part. CGI can only get you so much realism, and nobody wants to see that, anyway. Nobody actually wants to see a seventeen-year-old kid get kicked in the stomach until he pukes.

Apparently somebody does. At least four somebodies, but there could be more outside. 

They don’t talk to him. They don’t taunt him, they don’t laugh when he cries. At most they sneer, look at him with disgust, and shoot meaningful glances at each other. He doesn’t turn, thinking maybe they’ll go easy on him. They probably do.

They don’t tell him why he’s here, who this is supposed to punish. Don’t say it’s revenge, don’t take pictures to send to his dad or his friends. 

If they’d just _talk_  to him.

————-

The one in the brown shirt doesn’t like it when he talks, either.  He learns that on day two. With no audience, he can’t convince himself it’s worth trying. There’s no point wearing a mask if the only people there to see it don’t care. They’ll hit him no matter what, and trying and failing hurts more than not trying at all.

————-

Someone found his Jeep. For all their competence when it came to kidnapping and makeshift incarceration, they never got rid of his Jeep. No one expected him back in town, but no one expected him to leave his car by the side of the road. 

When they find him, he’s mostly fine. Bruised, bleeding a little here and there. But no big disfiguring scars, no missing limbs, no gouged-out eyes or cigarette burns. He’s been fed, a MacDonald’s burger every day, and given a water bottle. He’s fine. His dad doesn’t say anything, just pulls his arm over his shoulders and drags him out of the room. He covers The Boy’s eyes against the light when they get outside, and he’s grateful. Five days isn’t forever. Five days won’t kill you. But he’s grateful anyway, and keeps his eyes closed until he gets in the car and puts his head down on his knees. His dad keeps a hand on the back of his neck as he pulls away, rolling down the window and stopping at a turn in the road. 

“You’ll take care of them?” he asks somebody, and The Boy cracks his eyes open enough to see his best friend and The Man nod in unison. The Man’s jaw is set and his eyes are red. His best friend gives him a little wave.

“Hey, man.”

“Hi,” The Boy breathes. He doesn’t have a voice. He turns his face back to his knees and squeezes his eyes shut. His dad pulls away and doesn’t move his hand.

“Testing,” The Boy whispers to his knees. He can move his lips, he can move his tongue, he can breathe, but his voice is gone. “Testing, testing, one two, one two.”

“What?”

His dad pulls over, leans close.

“Testing, one two three four.”

“Hey. Hey, kid, you’re okay. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

He starts to cry and keeps his hands over his eyes. “One two, one two.”

“Hey, c’mere. It’s okay. You don’t have to leave. I’m sorry, buddy, I’m sorry. Hey, look at me, I’m sorry.”

He squints out from between his fingers. “Dad?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

He’s talking like he’s a little kid again, but he’s not. When he was a little kid, he never shut up. He couldn’t shut up if he tried. He talked in his sleep. “I can’t talk.”

“What?”

“Testing, testing, one two—”

His dad hands him a half-empty can of Coke. It’s warm and flat but it wets his throat. 

“Testing,” he says, and it crackles out on a pitch. “One two. Oh my God.”

His dad pulls him in, awkwardly unbuckling his seatbelt to get both arms around him.

“How long were you there?”

“What day is it?” he rasps. Clears his throat. “What day is it today?” He’s just repeating himself, just to know he can.

“Saturday. The fifteenth.”

“Five days.”

“Jesus. We’re getting you to a hospital.”

“Yeah, okay. Nothing broken, though. Nothing too bad. Just bruises and stuff. I’m tired. I’m just tired and I’m hungry. I can talk.” He clears his throat again. “I thought I couldn’t.”

“Five days. Were you  … changed for all of it? Quiet like you are when it happens?”

“No. No. Never. I just couldn’t talk. They don’t like it.”

“You’re okay. Shh.”

He’s still crying, but he can’t stop, he doesn’t want to stop.

“They don’t like it so I just stopped, and I didn’t think I’d ever just stop but it wasn’t like fighting with Derek, it wasn’t like Jackson, it wasn’t like any of that. It wasn’t like fighting anything, Dad, I didn’t fight at all. I remember how, I do, I remember you taught me how, I know how to fight, but I was just, I was out of it, I was so— I don’t know what I was when I left but it wasn’t smart and I didn’t even know they were there until they had me and I don’t want you to think I’m idiot, I don’t want you to think I don’t pay attention, because I do, I normally do. I normally see everything, you know, I normally see the bad stuff coming a mile off, but I thought I was already in it, you know, I thought it was as bad as it could get but I should have known, I should have known thinking like that is what gets you killed. That kind of— God, I don’t know anything—”

His voices goes out again, back to airy rasps, and he looks around wildly, staring up at his dad. Make it better, Dad, fix it. His dad is crying a little, but he didn’t interrupt at all, so at least he knows what he’s doing. He knows how to handle this part of his son, the part that just needs room to move, a little time to let the poison out. This part only scares him a little.

“It’s okay, kid. You’re just thirsty, that’s all. You need a good night’s sleep, a decent meal, you’ll be fine. Okay?”

The Boy nods, sits back, tucks up his knees. His dad buckles him in, then himself, pulls back on the road.

His dad doesn’t make him give a statement, which is nice. They’ll do that tomorrow, most likely. The hospital doesn’t make him stay, they just give him painkillers and tell him normal stuff like “take it easy, drink a lot of fluids.” His dad probably has something to do with that, too.

When they get home, both his Jeep and the Camaro are parked out front. The Man is sitting on his front steps, next to his best friend. They’re both damp-haired, freshly showered. Everyone knows what they’ve been cleaning off, but no one says anything. The Boy goes to his Jeep, retrieves his backpack of clothes and toiletries. He goes to the house, but hesitates, looking at his dad.

“Can I—?”

His dad takes him by the shoulder and hauls him inside, holding the door for the others.

“You’re staying here,” he says. “You don’t have to leave again. Don’t leave again.”

He sticks his cold hands under his dad’s jacket and pushes his forehead into the curve of his shoulder.  His best friend gets a hand on his back, and The Man holds onto his elbow. When he pulls back, he feels exhausted.

“I’m going to bed. Okay? Can you guys—?”

The Man nods and leads the way upstairs. His dad squeezes the back of his neck.

“I’ve got a literal mountain of paperwork to deal with right now. A shower’s not going to get rid of everything.” He shoots a look at The Boy’s best friend, who picks at the hem of his t-shirt.

“It’s cool. I’ll be upstairs.” The Boy manages a big of a smile. “Promise.”

His best friend doesn’t move the hand from his back as they go upstairs. The Man has kicked his shoes off, but that’s it, looking awkward in the middle of the room. The Boy goes to him and just leans in, hooking fingers into his belt loops. He doesn’t mean anything by it, he just wants something to hold onto. The Man turns his head and bumps his nose against the curve of The Boy’s ear, soft but not accidental. The Boy breathes out, slowly, feeling every ache and every sting but not really minding it. He thinks for a second about how they look, the two of them, but then shrugs it off. This is all he wants, right now, a bit of warm breath behind his ear. 

His best friend comes up behind him and covers up his back, hooking his chin over a shoulder. His hands are soft over The Boy’s belly, like he knows it’s hurting, but they’re warm and solid. Proof. Other bodies in the room. Soft hands. 

“You should sleep,” The Man rumbles, and he nods, stumbling over to the bed. They situate themselves with little fanfare, a little cramped but not uncomfortable. He curls up between them and counts the points of contact between each of them. If there are more points of contact between the three of them than there are bruises on his body, then …  Something is proved. That’s what math is about, right? Proofs, proving, evidence? 

“Can you guys talk?”

“Can we talk?” The Man asks blankly.

“What do you want to talk about?” His best friend asks softly, pinching The Man’s arm.

“Don’t care. I just like to hear it, that’s all.”

There’s a moment of silence, and his shoulders tense up. If he opens his eyes, they’ll be gone. He’s imagining it, all of it. The pillow, the bed, the warm skin on his side, under his fingers.

“Erica’s really into knock knock jokes all of a sudden,” The Man finally says. The Boy grins, reopening a split lip. 

“But, like, violent ones. Or dirty ones,” his best friend adds. “It’s super uncomfortable.”

“And Boyd has decided on a new career.”

“Yeah, like he does every week. Last week he wanted to join the Marines, but now he’s gonna own a restaurant.”

“‘The Den,’ he was going to call it. Which I think sounds like a gentlemen’s club, but whatever—”

“No one says ‘gentlemen’s club’ anymore, Derek. They’re strip clubs.”

“There is a difference between a strip club and …”

The Boy drifts off, grinning. 


	13. Nursery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles has reason to question a lot of things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still have no idea what's going on  
> Niña likes rhymes; I like playing games.

_"These are the saddest of possible words" ~Franklin Pierce Adams_

_\---_

They are beginning to follow him around. Everyone else has been leaving him alone, but they have been following him around. It's directly proportional - as the living people leave him, the dead come out of the walls.

That sounds romantic. It isn't. 

They hang out between his eyelashes, waving at him as his lids start to slide shut, slamming him awake like a kick to the kidney. They scratch a spot on the back of his neck, like mosquitos, but by the time he slaps and rubs his skin raw, they're gone.

They whisper things at him before he falls asleep. Things that don't make sense; things he never remembers right in the morning. When he can't sleep under a roof, when they drive him out of his father's house, they crawl down tree trunks and burrow into his ears like cicadas. Termites. Rats.

\---

_Fish in a barrel_   
_The proper apparel_   
_A bird on a breeze_   
_The bend in your knees_

\---

"Scott keep them in! Scott! I know you can hear me, asshole, watch your left! Other left, Jesus Christ."

He doesn't need to worry so much, they run over and over each other,  no sense of direction. It's like there are thousands of them, but there can't be more than a dozen. He'd feel bad about it, worse about it, genocidal, maybe, if The Dead Man still had eyes. Whatever they are--not 'who.' You lose your right to 'who' when you pull out eyes with triple-jointed fingers and lick blue lips and laugh at the sound of it--they are smaller than people and go down just as easy. 

One gets his pant leg and tugs, claws winding into the fabric and reaching skin. He tries to stomp on it, scrape it down with the bottom of his shoe, and nearly loses his balance. His best friend comes up from behind and takes it in his teeth, crushing hollow bones and spitting out blue liquid.

"Not bad for a human kid," his best friend says, smiling. His teeth are blue, popsicle-blue, and his skin is poked through with rapidly-closing holes.

"Thanks," The Boy says, and picks up his shovel.

\---

_The lord is my shepherd_   
_My spine and my sin._   
_The devil is waiting_   
_To crawl through my skin_

\---

He tries to pinpoint where they live--not 'live,' but 'exist.' Where the ghosts are, in space, so he can  . . . do something. Spray the area with insect repellent. Set it on fire. Keep it in the corner of his eye and move his bed to the other side of the room. But they keep moving, like they know he's watching, and when he wakes up in the middle of the night they're all around him, blocking his nose so he can't breathe, tying his eyelashes together.

"You're a hero, Stiles," they say, kissing him on the forehead. "Extraordinary Boy."

\---

_An apple a day_   
_Keeps the point on your teeth_   
_Now peel back the covers_   
_And see what's beneath_   
_Don't sleep by your lonesome_   
_Don't sleep on your own_   
_The  ghosts are done waiting_   
_Come muscle_   
_Come bone_

_\---_

"I'll give you anything! Anything you want, I swear it!"

The Boy spins the bat in his hands, the crack fizzling in the corner of his mind. He grins over at The Man, flashing his teeth in response to fangs.

"That's presumptuous. It really is. Too assume you have anything we'd want. That's. Well." he crouches down and cocks his head curiously. "I'm done listening to you now."

He squeezes his eyes closed and turns. The bloodied mouth moves below him, frantic, and he flashes his teeth. A smile for a smile.

The Man smiles back at him, and pulls off a piece. It's easy for him, just the slightest exertion, and it makes The Boy shiver. Not an anger-shiver, not a power one, either. Something that likes the competence of it. Skill. He likes skill.

The Man brings his face back, the face they know the best, and raises an eyebrow. The Thing on the ground - when The Boy takes you down, you become a Thing. It's almost a privilege - is most likely making noise. Its mouth is gaping, dripping something or other. The Man raises an eyebrow and The Boy nods, so The Man smiles wider and winds up and throws. Pitches. The Boy swings, connects, smiles. The Thing drools nonsense into the dirt and for the first time in months, The Boy feels like a boy again.

\--- 

_Sweet little mother sits braiding her hair_   
_Across from the Boy with the uncanny stare_   
_Mother says "hush" to the hairs on her head_   
_The Boy doesn't stop 'til she's broken and dead_

_\---_

His dad talks in his sleep. 

He doesn't hear words, just the rumble of them through the wall. He fills them in for himself. He thinks it's wrong of him to fill in someone else's thoughts, but that doesn't stop him.

It's starting to wear on him, the split inside himself. It's like he loses time, but keeps his memory. He doesn't black out, he's never unconscious when he turns, but he isn't really himself anymore. He's a backseat driver, pretending to be in control. He imagines insanity must feel like this: somebody else taking over you, making your limbs move like a puppet.

It's not like that, though. There's no one else in here, no one but him. He has himself by the throat, choking off his own airways. He knows all of his weaknesses. He taunts himself, sing-songs in his brain until he begs for mercy.

\---

_Step once for the girl with fire in her hands;_   
_Step twice for the  boy with the misguided plans;_   
_Step three times and four for the father and child;_   
_Five times for the little one lost in the wild._   
_Step six times and seven for healer and law;_   
_Eight times for the boy with the ghost of a claw._   
_Nine times and ten will bring mountain and quake;_   
_Eleven steps in for the back that won't break._   
_Now up to the ankles in blood that you've spilled_   
_You can never be hurt; you can never be killed._

 

 

 

 


	14. Body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ethically questionable

_I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. ~Yogi Berra_

_\---------_

He sits down at the picnic table, stumbling a bit. He's not watching where he's going, there's something else to look at, so it takes him three tries to get his leg over the bench. The bar that connects the bench to the tabletop keeps getting in the way, catching his heel, making him wobble towards The Thing and back again. He straddles the bench and works his fingers through the holes in the bench like an anchor. It's that cheap green rubber, easy to clean, and his fingers are a little too big for the holes. They stick a little after the first knuckle, but he just holds on harder.

His left hand dials on autopilot, eyes flicking down to the screen just once to check the contact name. His dad doesn't answer, so he sits for a second, very very still. He thinks suddenly that he should move away, stop touching the table, stop leaving prints on the table, but he can't get his hands to follow instructions. He dials again and waits, dead still, frozen still.

"Stiles, I just got out of a meeting with the Mayor, I'm going to have to call you back."

"Dad." He doesn't sound like himself, he doesn't feel like himself, he feels like a puppet, like a mask. He feels like he's hiding deep down inside himself, like he's just a passenger, seeing and hearing things through layers and layers of glass.

"What happened?"

"I--."

"Talk to me, kid, are you hurt?"

He mouths a bit, empty air. "No one's hurt. I. Someone's dead. Someone is dead. He's on a park bench; no, he's sitting on a picnic table bench and I thought he was asleep but he's not, he's dead."

"Did you-- ?"

"I didn't, I didn't, I swear to God! I swear to God it wasn't me, Dad. It wasn't me this time, it wasn't. I don't know, I don't know what happened, I just got here and he wasn't moving and I thought he was asleep but he was all wet from the rain and I thought that was weird and maybe he was sick--"

"Stiles. Stiles! It's okay, just tell me where you are."

"So I grabbed his shoulder and I said 'are you okay' and he's dead, Dad, I know it, I know what dead people look like, Dad, I--"

"Where are you?"

"The middle school. Outside, outside the middle school. I'm outside at the table, where the tables are."

"I'm on my way. Sit tight, okay? Just sit tight, kid, I'll be right there."

He nods, silently, staring at the body. "Wait. No, you can't, you have to meet with the mayor. Don't you? You have to--"

"It's fine. I've got a job to do, he knows that. Just sit tight."

The Boy hangs up and looks at the body, slumped with its head pillowed on its arms.

"Are you okay," he says, dully. It isn't a question.

"No, Stiles," he answers himself, dropping his voice in his throat, rumbling in his larynx.  "No, I am not okay. I am not okay. I am not okay." 

When his dad arrives, he's been rocking back and forth for a few minutes, tethered by his fingers in the bench like a balloon, drifting.

"What happened?" He closes a hand on The Boy's shoulder, and The Boy remembers when his dad couldn't even touch him. Two months ago, three. Wouldn't even come close, would turn away. He hasn't done anything to deserve it, he hasn't gotten any better. His dad has just gotten used to it, like a creaky stair or a doorknob that you have to jiggle before turning. Not worth fixing it, really, if you just get used to it.

"A curse maybe. A spell or a poison? Deaton might know. We should call Deaton, he might know."

"Is this kid, you know. Involved? Does Derek--"

"Derek doesn't know him. Scott-- I don't know. He was in my eighth grade Spanish class. Patrick. His name is Patrick.  Patrick Kwan. I don't know-- I haven't seen him, I haven't seen him in years, I don't think. I think he goes to the Catholic School. I think he transferred; I haven't seen him in years."

"Okay, it's okay. Did you see anything else? What are you doing out here, anyway?"

"I was at Lydia's, and I walked, 'cause it was nice, but then it started to rain, so I waited. And I was cutting through the lawn and I saw him and I was just going to go by, but then I saw his jacket was all wet, and I thought it was weird. Why would you be out here in the rain? Why would you sit out here in the rain like this?"

"Okay, son, slow down. It's okay, it's--"

"Why would you be out here? I haven't seen him in years and then here he is and I don't know what it means. He isn't-- He doesn't know anything. Does he? No one's  _been_ here.  _Nothing has been here._ We haven't-- Not in  _months_  and I don't, I don't, I don't--"

His dad pushes the back of his neck and he folds in half, easy, like tissue paper, nose against his knees. He hears another car pull up, Tallbear's voice echoing weirdly against the concrete. She isn't saying words, though, she's just echoing and buzzing and his dad is buzzing back and his eyes are spotty. She says something to his dad. They leave him to breathe. They go to the body.

When he sits back up, there are uniforms on radios, taking photos.  He rises, shakily, hobbling over to his dad on pin-and-needle legs.

"What is it, what happened? Do you know? Are there any marks, any--"

His dad takes his arm and leads him away from the scene, leans him up against his cruiser.

"Nothing. We'll have to wait for the coroner to do an official report, but  he's got an insulin pump, and it's got a warning flashing, so--."

"So what was it, then? A spell, do you think? Something that targets--"

"Stiles. This happens sometimes. Pump malfunctions, or the kid can't replace--"

"What?"

His dad holds he back of his neck, looks him in the eye. "This has nothing to do with you. I'm sorry you were the one who found him. It shouldn't have been you."

"What?"

"He just died, Stiles. It's not a spell, it's not an attack, it's nothing . . . it's not you. His pump ran out of insulin or battery or something, for whatever reason, and he couldn't fix it in time. I don't know what happened, he just died. You didn't need to be here; I wish it hadn't been you."

The Boy stares, breathes. Wonders why this horrifies him more than any claw marks, more than flaming houses.

"That's fucked up."

"Fucked up stuff happens sometimes. I'm sorry."

"I--" He doesn't actually have anything to say.  _There isn't any blood_ , is what he's thinking.  _I don't know what to do when there isn't any blood. How do you know it's real? How do you know he's real when there isn't any blood? It's just a_ thing  _now, just a_ thing _without any blood. It poisoned itself and now he's dead, he was stuck inside a body that poisoned itself. He didn't do anything._ _  
_

And he finds himself wishing that this kid, Patrick, had been hunter. He wishes this kid had gotten in the way of his swing, because that would have made sense. Even if it was a mistake. It would be The Boy's mistake.

He only falls half-asleep that night, with his hands clenching and unclenching under his pillow, grinding the knuckles of them into his eyes. In his half-dreams, Patrick Kwan stares at him in the eighth grade Spanish classroom, eyes blank white, and when The Boy swings at him, his bat shatters into splinters. They fly around him in a whirlwind, slicing at his arms, digging into the creases of his elbows, his jaw, his hips, going for his eyes.


	15. Psalm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> blcwriter is right. They deserve some good things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dialogue is the only thing I ever want. And vague Biblical references just kind of happen, okay. It's a pretty book.

_You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.  ~Jim Bouton_

_\-------------_

“It’s because of you, you know. All of it. The thing I am in the summer.”

“What?”

“The universe looked down, and it saw how I love you. It saw the way I love you, and the universe looked down and it said, ‘no one can love like that and stay out of grief.’ And now here I am.”

“Stiles—”

“it’s not your fault. It’s  _because_  of you, but it’s not your  _fault._  You know? I don’t blame you. It’s me that— I’m the one that can’t love right.”

The Boy won’t turn around and look at him, keeps tapping at his keyboard. He’s not even reading, just hitting the spacebar over and over, an article blurring down the screen in front of him.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” The Boy says, left hand squeezing the seat of his chair, releasing. His best friend sits on the bed behind him, feet together, knees at ninety degrees. He’s not sure if he’s being yelled at or not, and that always makes him nervous. He keeps his hands folded on his lap.

“Love, you know? How you’re supposed to do it. I don’t do it right. And that’s where all this started.”

“You don’t know how it started, though. You don’t even know what it is.”

The Boy spins a little on the chair, just enough for a split second of eye contact before he slides back to the desk.

“It’s me. Just little ol’ me. It’s me gone rotten ‘cause I can’t love right. Can’t wait for everybody to leave me, gotta fight them all off first. Growl at you ‘til you  all run away.” He slams a hand down on the desk, breathing a laugh when the sound makes him jump. His feet slap against the base of the chair, over the wheels, a constant patter like hail.

“I’m still here,” his best friend says, trying to be as still as The Boy is wild.

“I almost killed Allison, you know. Almost did it. Would have done it.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t even feel bad about it. I don’t feel bad about anything.”

“Obviously, you do.”

“No I don’t. I ‘lack the capacity for empathy.’ That’s what the Doc says.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“His forehead does.” The Boy spins around in his chair, wrinkling his forehead and pouting. His best friend says nothing so he pushes off again, spinning back to the desk.

“My dad’s afraid of me, Allison won’t look at me, Isaac keeps his back to the wall when I’m in the room, Derek—”

“I don't know what you want me to say.”

"I want you to push back!” He slams his computer shut, both hands fixing him to the desk. “Hit me back, do something. I’m screaming and screaming here—”

“Stiles—”

“And it’s like everything’s going out; it’s always going out and nothing’s coming back in. I’m empty. I’m empty, Scott; I got nothing but— I don’t know. The back of your head. That’s the only thing I can see. All of you, leaving.”

There is a long silence, and his knees twitch.

“You’re the one who won’t look at me.”

The Boy says nothing. Doesn’t turn around.

“Come here,” his best friend says. He doesn’t.

“Get over here. Now.” 

He rises, doesn’t turn around. His best friend pushes himself up on the bed until he’s sitting cross-legged in the middle.

“Sit down. There.” He points to the pillows, back straight.

“No.”

“Do it.”

“No.”

“Let me tell you what to do. Do what I tell you.”

The Boy stares at him a long moment, pulling at the neck of his shirt, scratching the back of his calf with one bare toe, rubbing his chin with the back of a wrist. He sighs, then, and tumbles over onto the bed.

“Cross your legs.” He does.

“Look at me.” He does. Only in fits and starts, eyes darting around the room, fingers picking at the seam in his blue jeans.

“Look,” his best friend says. “Sit still.” He scoots closer, lifting himself up on his hands. He drops his knees on top of The Boy’s, holding them still. They’re pressed up against each other in a strange way, crossed legs like converging plates, a subduction zone of jittery growing-boy legs and blue jeans gone soft and worn with washing.

The Boy looks at him, face twitching but making an effort to be still. 

“Repeat after me.” 

The Boy grins at him, eyes sliding left, down, up, back to center.

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“No. Repeat—  _I,_ ” he presses  a fist into his chest, “love  _you_ ,” the fist finds The Boy’s breastbone.

He looks confused for a moment, then says, slowly, “You love me.”

“Yes. I love you and I’m not going to leave you.”

“You love me and you’re not going to leave me.”

“I love you and I’m not going to leave you.”

“You love me and you’re not going to leave me.”

“I love you. I’m not going to leave you.”

“You love me. You’re not going to leave me.”

“I really do. I’m really not.”

“You really do. You’re really not.”

“If I get sent to prison—” he raises his eyebrows at The Boy’s giggle.

“If you get sent to prison—”

“I still won’t leave you.”

“You still won’t leave me. Because I’ll probably be arrested for the same—”

“If they bring back the draft and I’m sent overseas—”

“Oh my God. If they bring back the draft and you’re sent overseas—”

“I still won’t leave you.”

“You still won’t leave me.”

“If I die—”

“No.”

“If I die—”

“No, Scott. No. That’s enough.” 

He presses down harder with his knees.

“If. I. Die.”

The Boy stares at him in silence, then trails fingers over the bones of his best friend's knees.

“If you die,” it’s barely a whisper.

“I still won’t leave you.”

“You still won’t leave me. ‘Cause I’ll die too. I will.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. Repeat. I won’t leave you.”

“You won’t leave me.”

“I will haunt you—”

“You will haunt me—”

“All the days of your life.”

“All the days of my life.”

“Because the way you love me—”

“Because the way I love you—”

“Is perfect.”

“No.”

“Is perfect.”

“ _No._ ”

“Is perfect.”

 

 

“Is perfect.”


	16. Inheritance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys. Your feedback on this story is incredible, and it's 100% the reason this expanded from a little 3-chapter "what if" to whatever this hell this looks like this week.  
> Thank you so much. This work is actually really useful to me as a writer of Things, and your support of it is indescribably encouraging.

_Baseball is the only sport I know that when you're on offense, the other team controls the ball.  ~Ken Harrelson_

_\---------_

His mother's side of the family was all imaginary. It's a family trait. 

"Your Auntie Elle went to climb Mount Everest, trained for years and years, but then she fell in love with a boy at the foot of the mountain and she never went up."

"Your Great-Great-Uncle Leon Had this obsession with counting that was so bad he couldn't go to a library - because he'd need to know how many books there were, how many pages, adverbs, vowels, inkspots. He died in 1934, when he spilled a handful of pebbles on the railroad tracks and got hit by a train. "

"Your Cousin Jane played piano so beautifully that anyone who heard her immediately collapsed in tears. She ended up breaking her own fingers with a meat tenderizer, a big one, because she couldn't stand the tears anymore."

It was always "Your Cousin," or "Your Uncle," never "My Niece" or "My Brother." They were fairytale people, with easy four-letter names and stories that fit in a sentence or two. They didn't have context or backgrounds or phone numbers or birthdays.

After his mother's funeral, he asked his father why no one had come. "Where were Cousin Jane and Uncle Will? Did Aunt Elle miss her flight from Tibet?"

His dad just blinked at him and said "Your mom didn't have any brothers or sisters."

"Really?"

"Yeah," his dad spoke slowly, like The Boy didn't speak English real well, or like he was a raccoon stuck under the porch - feral and skittish with sharp sharp little teeth. "Her mother had one baby before your mother was born, but he didn't live past a week. His lungs never developed."

"Oh."

Then The Boy grew up, and figured out that they were just stories. His mother had been strange, that way, kind of dreamy. His best friend is like that sometimes, willing to believe things that aren't true just because they're nice. Sweet. Both of them, they're just sweet. It makes The Boy itchy sometimes, how much his best friend talks like Her sometimes.

He starts to tell his best friend stories about Anna. "When Anna was little, she took a wrong turn and ended up watching a game of Horse between Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson. Magic won."

"Anna got in a car accident once and had to have the whole side of the car peeled off, like a can or sardines. She was fine, though."

"The first time Anna fell in love she thought she was going to die she loved him so much. But he never said a word to her; never even knew she existed."

His best friend looked confused at first, but then he let it happen. He'd ask for Anna stories sometimes, if he was hurting or tired or sad. They weren't always happy stories, but he knew they weren't ever true and that made him-

Something. That made him feel something that wasn't hurting or tired or sad, so he kept asking. And The Boy kept giving. He asked less and less, the older they got, but he always knew that if he said "Stiles, man, tell me an Anna story. I think I need an Anna story," he'd always get something new.

He never asked why, but if he did, The Boy would have told him, "In my family, you can only be real for a little while. After a certain amount of time, you turn into an imaginary person and every story about you stops being true. It's not something you can stop; it's like a medical condition. It's a hereditary condition that makes you imaginary. Sometimes it happens slow. Sometimes it just starts happening one day and you don't know where it came from and you can't stop it, you don't know how to stop it but you feel it creeping through you like shiny black liquid, like ink in your blood, and it stops your mouth and it plugs up your ears because words belong to real people. And you think that someday soon maybe you'll stop being able to see, or to taste, or to smell, or to feel anything but the snapping in your bones. And then you'll turn imaginary, and no one will even notice you're gone."

That's what he would have said, if his best friend had asked. He might still tell him, one of these days. He wouldn't be entirely correct, but it would feel true when he said it. When he gets around to saying it.

His best friend doesn't ask, though. He just looks down at his shoes every time somebody asks about The Boy's mother and he says, "I don't have one."


	17. Person First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The experiment continues. I don't know, I figured it was time to do something uncomfortable.

_“A ball player has to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That’s why no boy from a rich family has ever made the big leagues.” ~Joe DiMaggio_

_\--------_

there were things i intended to do, i think, places i was supposed to go and degrees, i think, to get. degrees were on the table, they were an idea, the were something i was going

we were going to visit every ballpark in the country, we were, me and dad, and I got him this book one year for father’s day, this guide that told the history of every ballpark in the country, and we marked them off in sharpie when we went, a big check mark at the top of the page, big black check mark but one time red because i lost the black marker. we only made it to six. but i guess that was okay, considering.

you can say that about a lot of stuff. that was okay, considering. 

‘you’re a person first,’ that’s what dad used to say. ‘whatever this thing is, it comes in second. you get it? you’re a person first.’ he was the first person who said that to me, really, who thought about what that meant, but it didn’t make me feel that great because that’s what he used to say to mom, too. ‘you’re not this - you’re a person first, you’re not a sick person. you’re a person, and you’re - ‘

i can’t read books anymore. not that i was ever great about it before, couldn’t really sit still. like, i could read, but my feet were always tap tap taptaptaptaptaptaptapping or i had a paperclip in my fingers and i was twisting twisting it around until it snapped in half

i don’t read the newspaper, either. i don’t even think i get one. i think you have to pay for that - it was always one of those adult things i assumed you just figured out when you grew up only i never did, so maybe i just haven’t grown

but i’ve gotten older, i can tell, i can, i can tell it’s something about the shoulder joint, i think and in my knees when I stand up from sitting on the ground i can just tell

i’m not old

i’m never going to be old

who am i kidding?

scott’s going to be old, though, i can see it sometimes when he smiles at something that isn’t there - you know that kind of smile when he’s thinking about something completely out of the blue, not what you’re talking about at all, like there’s somebody else in his head that just said something like ‘chocolate chip pancakes’ or ‘your mom that one time she tried to dye her hair red’ or ‘stiles loves you remember how he loves you’ and he just smiles off someplace like he’s smiling at whoever it was that said it but that person isn’t there, you know, they’re just in his head, so he just smiles off somewhere

and that makes him look like a kind of an old man, to me. i guess i couldn’t tell you why. he’s going to be something magnificent when he’s an old man.

maybe i’ll get to see him. depends on what’s true about death and imagination, i guess - is that what i mean? but maybe i’ll get to float around for a while before i get used up in the making of something better. some little atoms that used to be my eyes, floating around behind him, in the wake of him, like always

but no, we follow each other. that’s how we work.

i don’t like to think about derek after i’m gone, it’s too much to think about. it’s too sad. and weird. it feels weird to imagine your existence, just the non-action of continuing to exist, as something that affects somebody else. but it does, it affects him, because the second you stop he

that’s just how he is. he’s getting better, too, better at recognizing it before it’s gone. squeezing the back of your neck like, ‘hey i’m glad you’re still existing thanks for keeping that up,’ like the least motivational coach ever. gold star and an a for effort.

he doesn’t call me kid anymore

so i must be getting older.

that and the thing in the knees but i think i never healed it up right when i sprained that ankle, and it’s all connected, right, the feet and the ankles and the knees and the hips and the back

like dad’s uncle thought he had back problems but it was actually his hip that was making him walk wrong and so he had it replaced and he never had a problem again

a problem with his back, anyway

bus rides like this, these long, long, overnight bus rides do something to my brain

it’s like i’m used to thinking with the front of my brain or the top of my brain where the clever part is, but when i’m tired and rocking like this and it’s humming underneath me it’s like i can’t think in the front. i’m thinking with my - what is that called? occipital, is that the back? but that’s eyes and mine are closed. but it’s like the thoughts can’t climb over to the top of my brain, can’t reach to the frontal lobe, can’t make the leap to connect two points.

it gets like that when the crack comes, too, when i hear it. my brain shrinks down all tight and rolled up at the base of my skull, right where you hold when you squeeze the back of my neck.

but that’s different, i guess, fundamentally, from this kind of feeling, this bus-ride feeling

it only ever happens on buses. i don’t know why that is. long car rides, i’m out in like twenty minutes, tops. snoring like a dog.

right now, right this second, i can’t remember where i’m going or where i’m coming from. if i’m going  _to_  or leaving  _from_ , and that’s an important thing to know. 

i know i miss my dad, but i always miss my dad. and i know i miss my mom, but that’s gotten so normal, it’s like saying i have fingernails. imagine never having fingernails and then all of a sudden one day you do and they get int he way and they feel strange and foreign and you keep scratching yourself, hurting yourself by accident, and you don’t know how to manage them, trim them, keep them under control, so you keep cutting your skin open on them and then you figure it out, you learn, and

i only ever think like this on buses. i miss my mom.

but it’s like the second the lights go down in the movie theater right after the previews and i always have this second where i don’t remember what movie i’ve actually come to see. so it’s a surprise when the movie starts. it’s like that, like i know i  _knew_  where i was and i  _will know_  where i’m going, but for this second i just

i don’t know where i’m going

i’m told this is a normal twenty-something phenomenon, but normal twenty-somethings have less blood under their fingernails.

presumably

i guess i don’t know, for sure

maybe they’re all just better at hiding it than i am

maybe they’re all falling apart

maybe they’re all imaginary

we’re probably all a story, aren’t we. we aren’t writing it, we won't get to read it, we’re just in it. i don’t know who’s writing it, and i don’t think i want to.

can you trust someone who writes a story this big?


	18. An Attempt at a School Assignment That Goes Questionably Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should go without saying, but please do not take any of Stiles' assertions or citations as fact.  
> Lots of things went into the writing of this paper, including lots of adderall, caffeine, possibly some cough syrup, and also murder.  
> Sorry, Ohio.

**The Dust Bowl: Causes and Consequences**  an essay by Stiles Stilinski  
American History, B. Finstock  
4th Period  
10/18/13

**Essay Prompt #4: Summarize, in your own words [I’M LOOKING AT YOU, GREENBURG] the five main causes of the Dust Bowl and the five major consequences. Cite all sources in MLA format, and include works cited at the end.**

Let’s talk about baseball. You can’t understand American history if you don’t understand baseball, so we’ll start there and work sideways.

(Lacrosse is a stolen game; they replaced it with commodity cheese and snuck out back in the middle of the night like no one would notice. This country’s got squeaky stairs though - somebody always notices. Don’t talk to me about lacrosse.)

History of baseball in three acts - game, rules, bleachers. You need your game first, then you need your rules, so everyone knows what they’re supposed to be wanting, and then you need somebody to catch your foul balls and sing your songs after you’re dead.

See, war is no fun anymore. War stopped being fun in the beginning of the 19th century, when guns started rolling up on wheels and the fuckers from the other side started poisoning your water supply. Game without rules, right? No fun anymore. Gotta have the game, the rules, and the bleachers. The game’s still there, but no one agrees on the rules and the bleachers are getting decimated, so it’s time for a new game.

Something for glory. Use the same muscles.

By 1940, 86,000 people had moved from the Plains states to California to escape the dust storms and drought (Worster, 50).

Rob Woodward, Red Sox pitcher from 1985-1988 (b. 1962), made $86,000 per year.

There’s a reason baseball is a blue collar sport. Professionals aren’t, anymore, that’s true, but professional sports aren’t about the players.

Think about it. The guys who play are about the muscles that connect to the bones that connect to the nervous system, but it’s a roundabout kind of connection. Not like fans - that’s all about the nervous system. The pros, they jump around from team to team, more than once. The record for most teams played for by a professional ballplayer is twelve, and it is shared by Mike Morgan (pitched for the New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers [not the New York Dodgers, that’s another painful history to discuss in greater depth somewhere else. A dissertation on Inherited Cultural Trauma and How To Make A Mets Fan], Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Minnesota Twins, Texas Rangers, and Arizona Diamondbacks between 1978 and 2002), Ron Villone (pitched for the Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres [HA!], Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Indians [another dissertation for another day, on The Cultural Appropriation of Ohio In General: What Do You Contribute To The Union, Ohio? Really?], Cincinnati Reds, Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros, Pittsburgh Pirates [my dad used to have a Pirates jacket. I have no idea why. It was really old and it was the softest thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I think he sold it for like seven bucks at a garage sale (Rent in the Yakima Valley shacktown of Sumac Park was seven dollars a week during the Great Depression [Civil Rights & Labor History Photo and Documents Repository]).], Florida Marlins, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, and Washington Nationals between 1995 and 2009), Deacon McGuire (caught for a bunch of teams that don’t exist anymore  between 1884 and 1912), and Matt Stairs (played first base, outfield, and was designated hitter for the Montreal Expos, Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies [that is a seriously stupid name for a ball club. Almost as stupid as “Oakland Athletics,” but we’re not going to touch that right now because, as I say, dissertation], and San Diego Padres [HA! HA!] between 1992 and 2010). Stairs actually beats them all with 13 total teams, as he was with the Nationals for a bit there at the end. 

So professional baseball is actually this mess of loyalties mixed with nerve endings mixed with inherited family rage, all to the tune of millions of dollars a year. A fan is a fan of the uniform. A player is a fan of the bones inside the uniform. 

Don’t get me started on fantasy baseball.

But the sport in itself, the four-balls-three-strikes-three-outs-three-bases-home-run-double-play-triple-play-grand-slam sport in and of itself, all business aside: that is a sport for a poor man’s muscles.

Shoulders that swing hammers that swing pickaxes and swing scythes are made for swinging bats - doesn’t matter if they’re inherited shoulders or grown like callouses by yourself. Still counts. 

It’s like Catholicism, in that way, or like being Jewish even though no one but your great-great-grandfather’s ever kept kosher. You can roll around in other kinds of mud and you can shake and shake and shake like a wet dog - it doesn’t come off. (see my future dissertation, How To Make a Mets Fan.)

It’s set up American-style too. Baseball. The American dream is realized on baseball diamonds. [citation needed] The American Dream is not - as the popular press would have it - the rags-to-riches-pull-your-own-bootstraps tale of corporate success that keeps factories full and minimum wage low. No, the real American Dream is the Fifteen Minutes. You wait, you wait, you watch, you wait, you get set, you wait, you watch, you wait, out there in left field, out there in the outfield, and then finally soaring down like the asteroid that wiped out the prehistoric monsters, there’s your fifteen minutes.

It’s not just Fame - that’s another lie they tell you to sell magazines and botox and 3D tooth-whitening strips. It’s Fifteen Minutes of something besides the constant, low-grade hum of not being good enough.

(we’re a country made up of people who got kicked out of everywhere else - even those who were here first got kicked out of where they were. No one wants any of us, so they boarded us up in the largest scrap-heap they could find. Lucky for us it had cotton and potatoes and sugar cane and maple trees. Don’t let Manifest Destiny fool you - there isn’t a single real American who thinks they’re Good Enough.)

You just have to be ready when they come, those bright shining Fifteen, whether they last three innings or three decades or three breathless seconds. That’s the American Dream. That’s the American way. Swing from the shoulders, follow through, or you’re out. You wait and you wait and then it’s one split second, safe or out.

Safe is an interesting word.

And then the Dust Bowl happened and it was really bad and “shitloads of people died” (John Steinbeck,  _The Grapes of Wrath_ , pg. 798).

X   **Checking this box indicates that the essay above is all my own personal work and I did not cheat, steal, or plagiarize a single word so help me God.**


	19. There's a History That Doesn't Happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In another world, different from this one, there was a Boy, his best friend, and one who will grow up to be The Man. But this is a different world, so who knows what could have happened.
> 
> He dreams about it, sometimes, though he doesn't remember when he wakes up.

_"Baseball is not life. It is a fiction, a metaphor." ~David James Duncan_

_One man's opinion._

_\------------_

He’s a little scrawny for his age, with too big front teeth that his big sister tells him are “sweet.”

“You look so sweet, Derek, like a little bunny.”

He growls at her, because he isn’t sweet and he isn’t little. Doesn’t she know he’s got monsters in his blood? Doesn’t she remember? But she’s bigger than him and she goes to a different school and so she gets to decide what is and what isn’t.

He doesn’t stay mad long, because he’s got people who know him for real; he has The Boy and he has their best friend. The three of them have been inseparable for as long as they care to remember - not because it’s been that long, but because it’s pointless to think about things from before they were The Three of Them.

And it doesn’t matter that he’s eight and they’re only seven, or that he’s in third grade and they’re only in second. It doesn’t matter to them, not even a little bit, that he doesn’t know how to talk to the kids in his own class. He doesn’t know how to talk to anybody, really, anybody not related to him by blood or the two of them. And they count as blood, almost, because they cut their hands last year and shook - a strange kind of three-way shake that bled a lot more than they were expecting.

It doesn’t matter to them. Even when it comes up, which it does, because everything always does, and a year is a long long time when you’re seven and a grade is even longer. The Boy says, “It’s okay, we don’t care that you’re all old and wrinkly.”

And he leans towards The Boy purses out his lips and scrunches up his nose and squints his eyes and hunches his shoulders and growls out “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” and their best friend falls down on the grass because he’s laughing so hard.

They flop down next to him and The Boy says, “What are you going to be when you’re a grownup?”

Their best friend smiles and rubs his nose into The Boy’s fuzzy head and says, “I’m going to be just like my dad,” and they all nod seriously, because Mr. McCall is a Very Important Man, even if they don’t really know what he does that’s so important.

Then The Boy looks at him and says, “What about you? What are you going to do when you’re a grownup?” 

And he says, “I’m going to live in a house made out of trees.”

And The Boy says, “All houses are made out of trees, doofus, except if they’re brick houses.”

And he rolls onto his stomach and props himself up, because this is Very Important, and he says, “No, those are wood houses. I don’t mean made out of wood; I mean made out of trees. Alive ones, with roots and leaves and branches that grow. And the branches will grow overnight, real fast, and so I’ll wake up in the morning and I’ll have a new bedroom or a library or an extra bathroom because the branches will grow like that in the night.”

And neither of them laugh at him or say he sounds stupid, they just nod seriously because this is a Very Good Idea.

The Boy even says so: “That is a Very Good Idea, Derek. Maybe they’ll grow us a room, too?”

And he scoffs a little, because The Boy isn’t nearly as smart as he thinks he is. “We’re all going to live there. Duh. And when we all get married and have kids, the trees will grow all of them rooms, too, and then we’ll have a whole forest that’s just where we live. And there will be rooms that our moms and Laura and people can stay in to visit, but when we don’t want them around anymore then the branches will go back and poof! No more room!”

“Poof!” their best friend giggles. “What about you, Stiles?”

“I’m going to play ball. Baseball. I’m going to be the first basemen for the Mets.”

“That doesn’t ever happen, you know.” He can’t stop himself from saying it. “Everybody says they’re going to be a ballplayer or an actor or an astronaut, and they all end up at community college or teaching at the high school or working at the Kwik-Trip.”

He doesn’t really want to say it, and he doesn’t even really mean it. He believes that The Boy will play ball; he’ll play it like nobody ever will ever again. The Boy will be a legend. As far as he’s concerned, The Boy already is a legend. But there’s a stripe of meanness in him, born into the blood of him, and he can’t shake it any more than he can shake off the wolf so he says it anyway.

The Boy’s face doesn’t fall, but he closes his eyes and a cloud-shadow drifts across his cheeks.

“Somebody has to do it, though,” their best friend says. “Somebody has to play ball or be an astronaut or be in movies, don’t they? So maybe it’ll be Stiles. Somebody’s got to do it anyway, so why not Stiles?”

The Boy smiles up at the clouds with his eyes closed, a little quiet smile, and looking between him and his smile and their best friend and his perfect, perfect heart makes him almost want to cry. It makes his own heart twist around like it’s looking for spaces to slip out from between his ribs. He leans over and rubs his nose against their best friend’s cheek, piling on top of him until he wheezes under the weight.

“You’re squishing me!” he squeals, but he locks his arms behind the weight on top of him and doesn’t let go.

“You’re right, Scott. You’re always right.”

The Boy cackles and sits up. “Oh no, no, no, you’re going to regret that.”

Their best friend yanks him in by the T-shirt, bellowing, “You hear that! I’m always right! Europe is so a country, and, and, and, chocolate milk comes out of brown cows!”

And they roll around and around and get covered in grass stains from head to toe.

Derek likes it. It makes them smell like summer.

........

There's a theory somebody had once that when you dream things that look familiar, you are actually looking through the cracks between stories. You wake up feeling like you were so, so comfortable a minute ago, but if you try to grab the details, nothing looks right.

The Man has a lot of dreams. He has taught himself how to forget them.


	20. Cleats

She slid into him. That’s what got him, really, that’s what stuck. He was down, couldn’t move, he’d been backed into a corner with spots in his eyes and she ran across the room and slid right into him. She got him with her claws on the soft inside of his thigh, right through is blue jeans, and it was screaming,  _blinding_  pain and he blacked out for a second when he felt her wiggling toes meet bone. But she slid into him, and her form was  _perfect._

After, when they leave him to bleed out on his own and the turn leaves him and he’s in his best friend’s arms on the way to someone’s car, he can’t get it out of his head. Her balance on the outside thigh, the perfect bend of her knee, the point of her toe, the shock of contact as it shuddered up to her hips. He knows it’s his own shock that makes him think in slow motion, but the replay repeats and repeats behind his eyes, slower and slower still. Her feet, deadly and bare, sliding into him, sliding home.

He’s never thought of himself as home before, not for any reason, but he has exposed bone and probably a concussion, so it almost sounds right. He feels opened up and waiting, like an empty socket, shocked with the memory of a completed circuit.

It only takes one touch to steal a base. It only takes one touch to steal home.

He passes out in the backseat of the car, feeling trampled, feeling dust, feeling sand. The crowd roars in his ears as the world goes dark, the rushing of blood inside his head cheering her on. When he dreams, he is dissected by laser-red eyes. She flicks them to the side and his skin flies off in pieces. 


	21. Heart to Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having is the result of taking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started the new Neil Gaiman book and it made me sad and then this happened.

"Sometimes," The Little One says, slowly stretching out her claws and pulling them back in, "Sometimes I think we're shadows of everybody else."

"What do you mean?" The Boy asks, twirling the bat in his hands.

"We know we're not normal, you know. We've always been aware that we're different. Wrong, I guess, compared to the rest of you." She slides the claws back in the folds her hands, almost primly, on her lap. "We know we're the outside. I guess you're outside, too. Aren't you? I still haven't seen it, but I've heard what you look like."

"What does that have to do with shadows?"

She shrugs.

"I dunno. Sometimes I feel like a normal kid, I guess. So maybe there's, like, a version of me somewhere that's just a normal kid, and sometimes I get to see what her life is like. Just a couple minutes at a time. Maybe an hour. Or when I'm sleeping."

"Huh."

"I'm never a wolf when I'm sleeping."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Are you . . . you know?"

The Boy rolls his head back against the trunk of the tree. He can't really see her from here, their shoulders touching around the curve of the trunk.

"I don't really remember my dreams. Just shapes. Heat. If I have dreams about hot things, or burning, or ice, or wind, those I remember."

She hums a little, and pulls her hair off the back of her neck so the breeze can get at her skin.

"There's probably a normal Stiles somewhere in the world - probably doesn't even call himself Stiles. Probably calls himself whatever your real name is."

"So my doppelganger is an idiot with no friends."

"It's that bad?"

"It's that bad."

She freezes for a second, and he feels her shoulder tense like a shock down his side.

"What?"

"Someone called you."

"My phone's not-- No, wait, it's here, but it's on silent."

"I can hear the little click. There's a little click when it lights up. I don't know, it makes a little noise."

The Boy answers, rising and turning to face her.

"What is it?"

" _Tell me what it's like to be a child_ ," the voice on the phone says softly.

"What?"

" _What is it like, being a child? It's been so long since I was one, that I just-- I don't--_ "

"Peter?" The Boy feels hair at the back of his neck stand up. "What do you want, Peter?"

" _No. No._ "

The Little One holds out a hand, shakes her head.  _Not him_ , she mouths.

"Who is this?" The Boy asks, careful.

" _It must be so odd. Your perspective changes, doesn't it? It must. Your eyes get so far from the ground so quickly, when you're a child_."

"Who is this? What do you want?"

" _It must be so--_ "

"Where's Peter?"

" _You don't want to talk to him_."

The Little One bites her lip, pulling out her own phone to send a message.

" _No one wants to talk to him. Do they? Ever._ "

"That's not really the point," The Boy says carefully. "Why do you have his phone?"

" _I took it. Having is the result of taking._ "

The Little One looks down at her phone, back up to the boy. Flashes an open hand at him, mouths  _five minutes_.

"Where are you?"

"I _just can't remember. My memories have gone so-- From too much interference, I think, too much time spent inside heads that aren't attached to my own neck. So strange, to know a mind  so intimately and to watch it walk away from you. Watch it stutter and still and die and roll, roll, roll--_ "

"What do you want?"

" _\--roll away. I want to know what it's like to be a child. I want to remember. I want to go back. I still remember the girl I loved as a child. The way she smelled when they gathered her ashes and sent her into the wind_."

The Little One freezes, meets The Boy's eyes.

" _It's a childish thing, to love someone from afar. Children do everything from afar, because they cannot touch anything. They have adventures and romances and great, great pain, all from such a long ways away. It's a lonely thing. Isn't it? The pack isn't the same thing, when you're a child. Your mind is-- Your mind is just yours, it belongs to you and whoever else you lend it to._ "

"Is-- Is this Deucalion?"

There is silence on the other end of the line.

" _My friends called me The Duke. Before, when they were alive. Before I killed them all. There was a time that I had friends, and they called me a name and laughed, but it was a kind sort of laughing_."

"What have you done with Peter?"

" _What have you done? That's the question, isn't it. Always the question. It was the last thing she ever said to me. 'What have you done? What have you done? What--_ '"

"Tell me where he is. Do you hear me? Hello? What do you--"

"-- _have you What have you what have you what have you--_ "

"Stop it!" His voice echoes strangely off the trees.

" _How old were you when your mother died?_ "

The Boy chokes, can't speak.

The line goes dead.

 


	22. Lost Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voices in head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read Maze Runner. This was the result. I don't know, the books were unsatisfying.

_The great American game should be an unrelenting war of nerves. ~Ty Cobb_

_\-------_

_Baby. Baby, listen to me._

The Voice slides his eyes open, he jerks, cracks his head against the concrete behind him. Cars overhead, soft to loud to softloudsoft.

"Mom?"

_Baby, you're not good enough. I'm sorry, but you've got to be better._

The Boy looks around, but he's still alone. He gets up and paces the length of the underpass. It's closed for construction, but construction never really seems to get done in this town. He spins the bat between his fingers, waiting.

_You still use wood. Even though it splinters._

"I like it." He responds without really meaning to. He doesn't like talking to himself.

_You like that it cuts into your palms when you swing. Instant penance._

_"_ You're not my Mom. I don't know where you are, or who you are, but--"

_Don't you like my voice? I chose it especially for you. I thought you'd love it._

"Who are you?"

_I'm yours. That's why I know you're not good enough. You have to try harder. Be good, be evil, it doesn't matter, you just have to be better at it. Better than you are._

_"_ What are you, my conscience? Cricket? Jiminy Cricket?"

_You can call me Voice. I'll call you Bat._

"What do you mean, better?"

_Kids never used to tell adults anything. People in power. You couldn't, because we wouldn't believe you. We'd laugh you out of the room. Just a little Boy. You got to keep your own little magical realms to yourself, as long as you promised to stay a Boy, promised not to grow up and ruin things._

"My conscience is Peter Pan?"

_It's different now. You high achievers. You don't tell the adults anything, the adults tell you. The adults string you up by hooks in your shoulders like meat that needs draining, and they watch you gut yourself. But you have to do it perfectly, no mistakes, high efficiency. Don't be such a disappointment to us, darling._

"I don't understand."

_You don't have to. You just have to show up and bleed on cue. The whole virgin sacrifice thing - it's not about virginity, it's about youth. They just tend to overlap, things get lost in translation. Young blood, the kind that's not supposed to spill, they can't get enough. Keep you alive, keep you fighting, trying to be better, keep hurting you until you start to like it._

_"_ Get out of my head. _"_

_Until you start to mimic. Until you start to need it. Until you start to perform it, hold your friends down and try it out on your own._

"Get out!"

_Needles under nails. Wires, electric currents digging in under fingernails._

"Stop."

_You've thought of it before. Experiments. Trigger the response with wires under the nails. In the gums, trigger the change, pull the teeth out by the roots._

_"_ Where are you?" he screams, and it echoes weirdly off the concrete.

_I'm in the leaking scaffold you call a ribcage. In the shadows of the darkness around your heart._

"What The Doc was talking about. That's you? This is what he meant?"

_You built me a home, so I came. Still warm, like your heart's still beating._

"My heart is still beating."

_Echo, echo, echo echo echo echo_

_"_ Stop it." He scrubs a hand through is hair, pacing. Runs his lips over his teeth, clenches fists. "Scott, Allison. Are you with them, too?"

_I am faithful to you, only you. I will always be yours._

"That's not comforting. At all. How do I make you stop?"

_I love you. I love what you can do to a pile of moving bones, the way you carve people apart like chopping trees, your fastball surgery. You open your chest up when you swing, you know, the way a batter should, and it was just my size._

"Do Scott and Allison have people in their heads? People like you?"

_I'm not people._

"What, so you're me? You're my demons, you're my real self, you're my echo, you're my conscience, you're my shadow?"

 _Stitch me to the tip of your toe so you don't get lost._  

"What?" He slumps back onto the sidewalk. "Please, leave me alone."

_You never have to be alone again. Don't you see?_

"I'll kill you."

_You have to find me first. One day you will. One day you'll find me._


	23. Teenage Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was an exchange in one of the latest episodes that a lot of people hated, but I thought was super in character. So.  
> TW for mentions of abuse and teenage boys being shitty.

_"I don’t mind getting beaten, but I hate to lose." ~Reggie Jackson_

_——————-_

Isaac and Stiles play a game with rules of their own devising. 

Isaac claps a hand over Stiles’ ear, knocking off his equilibrium, his head splitting. Stiles turns, just for a moment, enough to heal a little, and then he takes a swing, cracking the bat against Isaac’s raised elbow. He’s gotten good at hitting joints, lately. Isaac is good practice. 

Isaac grabs him around the middle, takes him down, but he gets the handle down and jabs at the fangs that snap around his chin. Isaac practices shifting, teeth, then claws, then back as they fight. Only his eyes stay yellow, burning. Stiles snaps back and forth, faster than he ever has before, nauseated by the speed. Silence, roaring noise, colors whirling, senses sharpening and dulling by turns. 

"Fuck. Break. I need to puke."

"You don’t need to puke, pussy."

"Says the guy who hasn’t used his claws once all day."

"That what you want?" Isaac scratches up his side, suddenly, not deep enough to break the skin but enough to sting.

"Fuck you, we’re on break."

"No breaks in a real fight. You get the shit kicked out of you and ask for a break, see how that goes."

"You’re gonna teach me how to take a punch? You think I don’t know how to take a punch? Have you  _me_ _t_ me?”

He turns then, suddenly, and breaks three of Isaac’s ribs.

"That’s nothing," Isaac gasps. "First had my ribs broken when I was eleven."

"We’re still milking all that, are we?"

"We’re fucking  _bathing_ in it.”

He digs his claws into Stiles’ stomach, forces Stiles to knee him in the balls to get away. He has to turn for the next few blows just to heal, keeps bleeding sluggishly. He’ll probably need stitches later.

"Don’t take it out on me, psycho."

"You asked for it." Isaac grins bloody. "Psycho."

"Not my fault. You’re just threatened ‘cause Derek’s more damaged than you."

"Bullshit."

"Bullshit bullshit. Hey, duck!"

He does, on instinct, and Stiles takes a low swing that cracks across his collarbones.

"You are such a  _lose_ _r - “_

_“_ No, a loser keeps bleeding five minutes after a scratch.”

"Yeah, right."

"Derek’s not that damaged."

"Break! Cheating! No jokes!" Stiles shouts as he laughs in Isaac’s face. "What the  _fuck_  - “

"Time in." Isaac gets him by the collar, twists his bat arm behind his back. Stiles struggles, but can’t get an inch in any direction. He turns his mouth towards Isaac’s ear, takes a deep breath, and bellows wordlessly until Isaac falls back with his hands over his head.

"You’re not going to let this go, are you," Stiles asks with a sad shake of the head.

"His parents loved him. So. He can’t be that bad. Depressed, maybe."

"You waste time beating this dead horse, no way you’re gonna beat me." He gets a few cracks in against the top of Isaac’s head. "Besides, your mom loved you. You are totally normal."

"My mom’s dead, you spaz."

"So’s Derek’s. And Allison’s. Hey, so’s mine. I’m sensing a pattern here. We should probably keep an eye on - "

Isaac freezes. “Foul.”

Stiles falls back, panting. “My bad.”

“ _Foul_.”

"I  _know_. ‘My bad,’ I said.” 

Isaac’s still glaring at him, so he prods at his bleeding stomach. “Hey, how do you know when I can hear you?”

"What?"

"I can’t hear you when I’m turned, but I never see you try to talk to me then."

"You look different."

"How?"

"Your face is different. I don’t know. You don’t look like you."

Stiles shrugs, then leaps at him, trying to take him off guard. He’s too slow, though, he’s caught and brought down to his stomach, arms behind him.

"Fuck you!" he bellows, unable to get free.

"You love me." Isaac lets him up.

"Yeah, so?" Stiles takes a swing, and he knows Isaac is giving it to him but he isn’t offended. The bat cracks across Isaac’s shoulder and shatters. "You broke my bat, you dick."

"You’re still using wood, you dipshit. Buy an aluminum one."

Stiles makes a face. He bends to gather the shards into his backpack. Isaac watches him.

"Do you want to fuck me?" Isaac asks out of nowhere.

"What, right now?"

Isaac shrugs. “In general, I mean.”

"Allison still mad at you?"

He shrugs again. “You’ve thought about it, haven’t you?”

"Of course I’ve thought about it."

"So … "

"Nah."

”’ _Nah_ ’? That’s it?”

"I’m no good for you."

"I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of into things that are bad for me."

"Oh, so you’re into me now?"

"No. I don’t know. We do this a lot. We fight a lot, so I guess I thought - "

Stiles straightens, tugs on his backpack. “It wouldn’t work. We’re opposites. We get too close and we’ll neutralize each other.”

"We’re not that different."

"No, I mean - You’ve spent your life being good and being told that you’re not. I mean really, inherently good. Don’t argue. And I’m the opposite."

Isaac stares. Stiles shrugs.

"You can get better. You’re going to get better. I’m getting worse."

"Stiles - "

"Besides, I’m not Scott. You don’t want me."

Isaac hesitates, then shrugs deliberately. “Next best thing.”

"Go home, puppy," Stiles sighs, turning away into the trees.

"You have thought about it, though."

"You want me to say it? Yes. You’re a glorious beast, Isaac."

Isaac smirks. “That’s all I wanted.”

"Go home, weirdo." Stiles heads into the trees, fingers flexing around empty air.

"Hey, Stiles!"

He stops.

"Having a dead mom sucks."

Stiles turns back, just a little. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

He leaves Isaac alone in the middle of the woods.


	24. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you think college is going to be like?”
> 
> “High school but more expensive. Looser truancy policy.”
> 
> The hero laughs, at him, at himself, at the smoke tickling his nose. They’re sitting at the edge of a parking lot at the top of a hill, watching the sun go down.
> 
> The end. Thanks for sticking with my, friends.

_The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. ~Jackie Robinson_

_\---------------_

“Hey,” the hero says, blowing out a curl of smoke. The boy beside him, lazy and sprawling and loyal and cold, reaches out for the joint, impatient.

“Hmm?” 

“What do you think college is going to be like?”

“High school but more expensive. Looser truancy policy.”

The hero laughs, at him, at himself, at the smoke tickling his nose. They’re sitting at the edge of a parking lot at the top of a hill, watching the sun go down.

“I dunno, man. It’s weird to think about leaving. After everything that’s happened here, everything we’ve done. Like, if we leave then we might just wake up and it was all—”

“It was all a dream,” the boy says, waggling his fingers.

“Like, it’s weird to think that the town will still be here after we leave. You know? I don’t know why it’s weird, it it feels weird.”

The boy rolls his neck. “You’re philosophical today.”

“Maybe that’s what I’ll major in. Philosophy.”

“Veterinarian Philosopher King.”

The hero snorts. “King?”

The boy rolls onto his belly, looking up at him. “Of course.”

“Alpha doesn’t mean king.”

“You’re the heart of this operation, buddy. That makes you the king. Checkmate.”

“That means we lost, right? Checkmate.”

“I don’t fucking know, man. I got kicked out of chess club.”

“You did? When?”

“Fifth grade. You knew that.”

“I didn’t. Why’d they kick you out?”

The boy waves his hand airily. “Politics.”

There’s mild bite to the air, an edge of crispness that’s not quite chilly. The sun’s already behind the taller trees a few hills over. They’re all right for now, though, the asphalt beneath them warm from the day. The boy’s got his jacket on, but the hero runs hot. He lays down next to his friend, wincing a little as his back scrapes the rough ground. 

“Why here?” he asks.

“Hmm?”

The hero tilts his head to look up at him. The boy is propped up on his elbows, looking down.

“Why’d you want to come here? It’s a parking lot.”

“It’s scenic.”

“It’s a parking lot.”

The boy looks around it for a minute. “Used to be a park. Used to come here with my mom. And my dad, sometimes, when he could.”

The hero hums.

“Hit my first home run right over there. Wiffle ball, but still.” He points to a corner of the lot that’s taken up by a backhoe and a giant pile of dirt. This part of town has been under construction for almost as long as they could remember. Almost.

The boy sits up and reaches for his backpack, starts to roll another joint. The hero follows him up, eyes closed, trying to chase the sunlight with his face. His best friend laughs.

“If I’m the king,” the hero says after the first drag. “What are you?”

“Knight, probably. The jester, maybe.”

“If I’m the heart then you’re the brain, aren’t you?”

The boy tries to blow a smoke ring and fails, coughing. He thinks for a long time, smoking, picking at his chin. There’s the faintest hint of blood under his nails.

“I’m the fist,” he says, finally, addressing the valley in front of them.

“Who’s the brain, then?”

“No brain.” When the boy smiles at him again, it’s a little crooked and a little wrong. “Just a big old heart and a big old fist. Blind, deaf, no plan, no direction. Just a giant heart with a fist stuck on. Maybe with a bat, huh? Giant heart swinging a bat around.”

“Sounds like a monster.”

The boy faces away from the sun, face in shadow and haloed by an autumn sky.

“Yeah, it does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Closure's nice sometimes.
> 
> 5,000,000 thanks and loves to everyone who read this, commented, kudos'd, bookmarked, sent messages, and generally made hanging out in the Teen Wolf fandom a grand old time. Special love to @neenya for starting this whole fucking thing. 
> 
> So long, friends!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Summertime Chapter 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/579110) by [neenya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neenya/pseuds/neenya)




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